Why I Hate Hate Crimes

On April 29, the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" (whew, deep breath!) was passed in the US House of Representatives. According to civilrights.org, this bill would give the federal government jurisdiction over hate crimes in states where the current laws are deemed to be "inadequate."

I take issue with this bill on a number of different levels. First, this is a huge expansion of federal powers over states' rights. "We the people" become less and less important as more and more powers are granted to a centralized federal government.

But more importantly, the whole issue of "hate crimes" does not do much to further unbiased justice. Under a hate crime system, the action of a crime becomes less important than the motivations behind it. This has some bizarre consequences, too. For instance, if I was murdered on August 19, 2009 in cold blood, and my friend who is statistically identical to me save for the fact that she is a lesbian is also murdered on August 19, 2009 in cold blood, guess which murderer would receive the harsher sentence? That's right, my friend's. Is my friend more valuable as a human being than I? No, not at all. But because her murder was motivated by "hate," and mine was just the wild rampage of a homicidal individual, her murderer would be penalized to a greater extent.

Write your Senator and let him or her know that you do not support this bill!

Check out this link for more information.

Facts are Stubborn, but so are Americans!

On August 4th, the White House Blog asked ordinary Americans to keep tabs on "fishy" email chains or casual conversations that dealt with the health care reform bill, and to send the evidence to flag@whitehouse.gov. Click here for the blog post in its entirety.

The White House maintains that their only purpose for collecting this data is to help correct misinformation, but whatever the case may be, the government has no business monitoring what goes on in private conversations.

By taking this step, the government is initiating a precedent that is a huge infringement on personal rights. There is nothing wrong with the government monitoring select parties that have warning signs of being a significant threat to national security, but this is completely out of line.

So take action - email the White House using this form, and add to the many voices that are crying against such bold steps toward tyranny. Let's be stubborn about standing up for our rights!