Paging Kat Callahan

"Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura" (sundowne36) 03/28/2014 at 02:49 • Filed to: None

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You might want to look at this article for an absurd Tennessee law.

samssun > Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura 03/28/2014 at 03:07

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I'll chalk the more hysterical claims up to the source, as they obviously oppose a law that doesn't fit their cause. But more importantly, how scary is it that they're hand-wringing about speech they don't like being protected? I don't recall any qualifiers in that pesky Bill of Rights.

Stef Schrader > Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura 03/28/2014 at 03:08

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Man, Jesus was all about not being a turd to other people. Why is that part overlooked so often?

"Thou shalt not be a turd." Paraphrase mine, but true.

SteyrTMP > Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura 03/28/2014 at 03:08

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I would take that with a DOT truck full of salt. Consider the source.

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > SteyrTMP 03/28/2014 at 04:11

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No need - Googled the State Bill.

I hate Tennessee.

yamahog > samssun 03/28/2014 at 08:57

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Sometimes "speech you don't like" and "hate crimes" overlap.

RacecaR > Stef Schrader 03/28/2014 at 09:49

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If you don't mind, I am going to borrow this to use from time to time.

samssun > yamahog 03/28/2014 at 16:04

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Are we talking about actual crimes like murder or assault? If so those are already illegal and don't need special branding for favored pet groups. If you're talking about speech itself as a crime, I hope you can see the foolishness of empowering government to snuff out thoughts you don't like and trusting that same power won't eventually be directed at you.

Handing over others' rights (1st, 2nd, 4th, 10th) because you don't value them is a sure fire way to lose the rights you do value.

yamahog > samssun 03/28/2014 at 17:28

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"Favored pet groups: So favored, they don't even have equal rights under the law!"

Hate speech itself is also a crime "where such advocacy is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action," according to Brandenburg v Ohio.

Also, these are public schools in Tennessee, which should be subject to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, wherein employers are responsible for preventing a hostile environment caused by harassment, which can include hate speech. My apologies if I didn't make my train of thought clear earlier.

ReasonWeeps2 > samssun 04/13/2014 at 16:04

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Boy, you don't know what you're talking about at all. First of all, hate crime legislation applies to everyone, not just despised and oppressed people. Hate crime laws protect anyone who's attacked based on their status in a protected class. For someone who's so outraged by this and thinks it is only for "favorite pet groups," you show a stunning lack of knowledge about it. I'm sure you believe that white people aren't covered. Well, the first case about hate crime laws and their constitutionality was about a white victim of a group of black kids because they were angry after watching Mississippi Burning and looking for a white person to attack. The SCOTUS upheld the law and the conviction.

You also don't seem to understand Hate Crime legislation. Obviously, attacking someone or killing someone is a criminal act. Hate Crime laws are actually sentencing enhancements. They are aggravating factors at sentencing. You're right that the attacks themselves are illegal. A sentencing enhancement refers to the underlying felony just like using a weapon in a crime is an aggravating factor at sentencing.

I hope you realize that attacking anyone based on their status in a protected class applies to everyone and, as you can see, prosecutors seek the sentencing enhancement when someone attacks another person based on his or her status in a protected class. I hope I've explained what hate crime laws are about and how they apply to everyone, not just someone's "pet group."

samssun > ReasonWeeps2 04/13/2014 at 16:48

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Putting aside that Eric "my people" Holder has stated he won't pursue hate crimes with white victims, the whole idea of "status in a protected class" is the problem.

Government's job is not to create "protected classes" with their own sets of special rights, to be lobbied for and sued over, selectively applied based on whose regime is in place, and traded for votes.

Laws based on identity politics create Balkanization, and cheering on government overreach because your guy is using it in ways you approve is incredibly short sighted.

ReasonWeeps2 > samssun 04/13/2014 at 17:11

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You don't understand the concept of a protected class at all. A protected class means race, gender, sex, age, disability, and, in some jurisdictions, sexual orientation. The term protected class just means that people cannot target you for discrimination based on those reasons. It applies to everyone and the concept is just establishing a way to say "you cannot discriminate against people for those reasons. It is illegal, for example, to fire someone simply because he's white.And, when did he say that he personally will never prosecute hate crimes? I need a link.

You don't seem to get that protected class does not mean picking and choosing. They apply to everyone. You're misunderstanding what it means which may be why you answered the way you did. You're wrong and your misunderstanding of this fairly common legal term may be why you're so unhinged over it. If you are actually interested in learning about this, you can use Google. Just don't keep falling into the Dunning-Kruger Effect because it is unhelpful and not a good look

samssun > ReasonWeeps2 04/13/2014 at 19:05

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Common or not, a "protected class" means some groups are more equally protected than others, and most certainly means picking and choosing when the head of the DoJ drops voter intimidation cases while telling his department to focus on "traditional civil rights cases".

When your team is out and a new A.G. decides to go around slapping extra charges on urban "polar bear hunting" perps, we'll see if you're as enthusiastic about giving government yet another polarizing, arbitrary power.

ReasonWeeps2 > samssun 04/14/2014 at 01:35

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No it doesn't. You don't understand the notion of protected classes in the law. Didn't I caution you against falling into the trap of the Dunning-Kruger effect? You can lead a horse to water...

Well, the DoJ resources are not unlimited. Even the Bush administration refused to prosecute the case you're talking about. The prosecution would never have gone well because the crime they are alleged to have committed (and there is flimsy evidence that that conduct rose to the level of violating the law) is a really obscure part of the Voting Rights Act. Tell the truth: were you as angry with the Bush Administration for declining to prosecuting it too or is it only when Eric Holder declines to do it that you get upset. Look, not every alleged crime gets prosecuted. The evidence that what happened rose to the level of criminality is dubious which is why both the Bush and Obama administrations decided not to waste resources on what was nothing other than the reich-wing noise machine ginning up fake outrage. I seriously want you to tell me if you expressed the same anger when the DoJ under Bush declined to pursue it in court.

I don't know what urban polar bear hunting. As for "giving" the DoJ "arbitrary power," once again, you demonstrate that you have no knowledge of our laws, our courts, and our government. No jurisdiction in the United States has compulsory prosecution. It is, and has always been, up to district attorney's offices to prosecute a case or not. Prosecution is done at their discretion and theirs alone. That is how it has always been in our Republic. Prosecutorial discretion is sacrosanct in this nation. So, I've already lived through Republican AG's. They have the same right not to prosecute cases as a Democratic AG.

Before you go spouting off at the mouth, you should try learning about your country. I'm sure the first one to call someone unpatriotic, but you don't even have a basic grasp of how our legal system works. I bet you'd fail a citizenship test. You need to take a civics course at the very least because you do not understand these concepts probably because you aren't aware of them. You really shouldn't be engaging in a conversation like this when your knowledge of the issues at hand is paltry at best but you're pretty much ignorant of these important things.

tl;dr: let the smart people talk while you go read a book

samssun > ReasonWeeps2 04/14/2014 at 02:57

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All the condescension and pedantry won't change the fact that you're arguing for identity-politics laws that fly in the face of equal protection. And if you could step away from the idea that government overreach is ok when its your guy in power, you'd know I wouldn't have been angry 6+ years ago when Bush's DoJ didn't use the same laws I'm arguing against.

Giving DAs an additional "hate crime" charge they can choose (or not) to stack on other crimes is by definition arbitrary — without such laws, a murder would be a murder and an assault an assault. Polar bear hunting is what the perpetrators actually call what you hear politely described in the media as the "knockout game", so perhaps in a few years when black kids start getting their assault sentences doubled for targeting whitey we can continue the discussion.