Posted on 07/29/2009 9:36:28 AM PDT by rhema
Throughout the Bush-Cheney creation of a society under surveillance and unprecedented government secrecy, I have often praised Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., for resisting that administration's penchant for degrading the Constitution. But on July 16, he proudly watched as the Senate passed his "hate crimes" bill (the Matthew Shepard Act) that is the biggest expansion of federal hate-crimes laws since 1968 — providing extra prison time to committers of violent acts perceived to be based on sexual orientation, gender identity or disability (adding to the previous classifications of race, color, religion or national origin).
On the Senate floor, John McCain, R-Ariz., cut to the unconstitutional core of this bill and all such "hate crime" legislation. Leahy's bill, as of this writing, the president is eager to sign.
Said McCain: "Our legal system is based on identifying, capturing and punishing criminals, and not on using the power of government to try to divine biases." In opposing what James Madison condemned as "thought crimes," McCain added: "Crimes motivated by hate deserve vigorous prosecution, but so do crimes motivated by absolute wanton disregard for life of any kind." No matter against whom.
Leahy's bill, like the counterpart "hate crimes" measure of House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., that passed in the House this past April, violates the 14th Amendment's equal protection under the laws for individual Americans by setting up a special collective class of victims whose assailants, when convicted, will be given extra punishment for crimes perceived to be based on gender identity, sexual orientation or disability, among other biases.
Those who attack the elderly, police or those of the poor who are not among the "protected classes" would not get lengthier "hate" sentences than the law provides for the ACT itself. Doesn't this make lesser citizens of their victims?
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Because they were racist salve-owners with wooden teeth, right?
salve=slave
The Founding Fathers would be horrified at most of the developments which have occurred in this nation since the New Deal. This was not what they intended.
Like a lot of Freepers, I am still trying to get my head around what a like crime is. Murder is murder, rape is rape, and assault is assault. Do perps stay thank you in a non hate crime?
ALL of the laws are pretty much on the books, for just about any circumstance imaginable. Congress only keeps in business by making the already-existing laws more insanely specific or by naming them after people.
Sometimes I guess you have to state the obvious.
Anyway, a remark like this just makes the leftists more smug.
Your general point is correct but actually they're buying votes by pandering to self-selected politically correct "victim" groups. The intended effect is to increase hatred toward white, straight Caucasian males so as to marginalize them.
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