Speaking of hate and Obama
…only based on the titles of my last two posts (please do not read anything more into it other than a stream of consciousness)…
With the advent of the House yesterday passing HR1592 (which extends hate crime penalty protections to people victimized because of sexual orientation, gender identity or disability), I’ve been thinking a lot about hate and crime.
As I said yesterday, I think all crimes are pretty much hate crimes and I think it’s foolish to think that a crime perpetrated on a member of a protected class of individuals is any more heinous (especially to the victim) than when the same crime is inflicted upon a non-protected victim. Crime is crime and the penalty for a crime should be the same - regardless of who the victim is._Model_Ina.jpg/225px-Daumenschellen_(Thumbcuffs_Bondage)_Model_Ina.jpg)
Based on the news of the day, here’s a hypothetical that my wife and I were discussing this morning:
Suppose that some maniac decided to harm me. And let’s just say for the sake of argument that the penalty for this hypothetical act was to be 5 years in prison. Suppose that some maniac decided to do harm to President Bush (DISCLAIMER ALERT, I AM NOT ADVOCATING SUCH AN ACTION… if the Secret Service is monitoring this post, please know that I think you guys rock!). And let’s just say for the sake of argument that the penalty for perpetrating this hypothetical act on a U.S. president is 7 years in prison. Now let’s fast-forward two years and assume for the sake of argument (remember this is hypothetical and should in no way be construed as an endorsement) that Barack Obama is now president. Suppose that same maniac decided to do the same level of harm to President Obama (DISCLAIMER ALERT, I AM NOT ADVOCATING SUCH AN ACTION… if the Secret Service is monitoring this post, please know that I think you guys rock!) - should the penalty be 17 years?
I’m not trying to be funny here, I’m trying to demonstrate that the crime is the same and only the victim is different. In a country where we are “all created equal,” how can the penalty be different even when the crime is the same?
