Are there dangerous ideas?

[TheEncogitationer]

Jake,

You wrote:

If a gay man is beaten for being gay by religious homophobic zealots and then raped with a tire iron until he dies then the hate crime statute is applicable. Why not just charge the zealots with murder? It is because their motivation was not only criminal but the ugliest most vile in human behavior. Or consider a modern lynching in which a black woman is hung from a tree and tormented for hours…raped and then skinned alive. You want ordinary murder charges to appertain or do you think maybe hate crime is the frosting on the crime?

As it stands with the law as it is, without “hate crimes” laws, the ultimate penalty for murder or any other offense is either life imprisonment or the death penalty.  If murderers, rapists, and torturers do not get life imprisonment or death for these atrocities, the problem is not a lack of “hate crimes” laws, but because the courts accept all kinds of stupid defenses such as “diminished capacity,” “The Wild Beast Test,” “The Twinkie Defense,” “her skirt was too high,” “Gay Panic,” Curley’s “I was a victim of coi-cumstance,” on up to plain insanity.

Take these defenses out of jurisprudence and maybe life sentences will mean life and criminals of all motivations might think twice before victimizing the innocent.

[Glen D]

” They are usually to protect people from their own folly, to criminalize victimless, consensual acts of consenting adults, or to subsidize some special interest at the expense of others.”

What a romantic view of the legal system, any legal system.

Another perception:  <b>The</b> reason for a legal system is to maintain order and the status quo.

I know  a few lawyers.Essentially, they have all told me the same thing.Viz : The law has nothing to do with justice.  From time to time justice is done and seen to be done. This is the result of happy accident rather than intent.

20 odd years ago I read a book called “1215 ; The Year Of Magna Carta”.  Habeas Corpus is contained in Magna Carta & the core of English Common law in the UK and virtually every British possession. I had assumed Magna  Carta is about protecting the common man.It ain’t. The sole purpose of Magna Carta  was to protect English barons from King John. That the common man was also protected a bit was serendipity, nothing more.

 

The US is in the unusual position among developed nationsin that Habeas Corpus was at least partly abolished by The Patriot Act and the creation of the Department Of Homeland Security.

[TheEncogitationer]

Unseen,

You wrote:

All too often we do what we think the bad guys do. We dehumanize the opposition. We mischaracterize and therefor misconstrue what they say.

You are right and I hope I’m not doing any dehumanizing here on this thread.  No one here is the bad guy or bad gal and I want equal rights and justice for all, we just disagree on a frustratingly difficult subject.

Regarding Gay Marriage, the opponents just don’t understand that, judging from divorce statistics, the biggest threat to heterosexual marriage is heterosexuals.  Also, LGBTQ+ people have the right to The Pursuit of Misery as much as anybody else. 💔👫💔👬💔👭😉

As for the Masterpiece Cake case, I wouldn’t be the best impartial judge.  I’m Type 2 Diabetic and I hate cake.  If I were a Theist, I ‘d think that, judging from the number of Diabetics, that: “God Hates Cake.” 🌩🎂

Private businesses that don’t advertise as “open to the public” and don’t accept government contracts should have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason or no reason…and take their lumps on lost profit, especially if they refuse a frequently comfortable demographic that pays their bills.

I would gladly take any LGBTQ+ business that Masterpiece refused.  Irrational discrimination always comes with a cost and with rational inclusion comes rewards.🌈💰

 

[jakelafort]

Encogitationer your understanding of American law isn’t supercalifragilistic. But unless you ask me to critique it i won’t bother.

I am in favor of hate crimes provided they are well drafted. They send a positive message. I am more ardent about denying protection for hate speech.

[Unseen]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Private businesses that don’t advertise as “open to the public” and don’t accept government contracts should have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason or no reason…and take their lumps on lost profit, especially if they refuse a frequently comfortable demographic that pays their bills.

I would gladly take any LGBTQ+ business that Masterpiece refused.  Irrational discrimination always comes with a cost and with rational inclusion comes rewards.🌈💰

You may be open to the public but you are still private property and in most cases I’d think it’s “My place. My rules.” This is how some businesses require masks even though they aren’t required to. I feel an atheist should not be legally required to provide a cake with, say, a picture of a lynching over the letters KKK, but if we’re going to require a couple religious yahoos to make a gay cake, there are only two ways to be consistent. Either both have the right of refusal or both don’t.

[—]

Unseen wrote:

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Private businesses that don’t advertise as “open to the public” and don’t accept government contracts should have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason or no reason…and take their lumps on lost profit, especially if they refuse a frequently comfortable demographic that pays their bills.

I would gladly take any LGBTQ+ business that Masterpiece refused. Irrational discrimination always comes with a cost and with rational inclusion comes rewards.🌈💰

You may be open to the public but you are still private property and in most cases I’d think it’s “My place. My rules.” This is how some businesses require masks even though they aren’t required to. I feel an atheist should not be legally required to provide a cake with, say, a picture of a lynching over the letters KKK, but if we’re going to require a couple religious yahoos to make a gay cake, there are only two ways to be consistent. Either both have the right of refusal or both don’t.

In the Masterpiece case, I don’t recall any evidence that they were required to make a ‘gay cake’. That is to say there was no known request to put any associated LGBTQ+ images or symbols, to write any messages in favour of same-sex marriages, or to even have a groom-groom topper on the cake. While the cakes were technically custom, that doesn’t mean the clients had asked for anything the bakery didn’t offer to the general public already.

[TheEncogitationer]

Glenn  D,

You wrote:

What a romantic view of the legal system, any legal system.

Another perception:  <b>The</b> reason for a legal system is to maintain order and the status quo.

The protection of Life, Liberty, and Property is the romantic part.  (I think the phrase “Life, Liberty, and Property” came from The Levellers in The English Civil War.)

The rest of the uses for law are not romantic at all and are the worse uses.  And, you are right, those latter uses of the law do serve to preserve the status quo.

Protecting people from their own folly means they never learn and like Herbert Spenser said, it fills the world with fools.  Criminalizing consenting adult acts maintains organized crime’s monopoly on vices.  And subsidies to one at the expense of others usually benefits established interests in business, unions, the professions, and agriculture.

I know  a few lawyers.Essentially, they have all told me the same thing.Viz : The law has nothing to do with justice.  From time to time justice is done and seen to be done. This is the result of happy accident rather than intent.

And like sausage-making, it’s not pleasant to watch laws being made.

🐷🌭😱

20 odd years ago I read a book called “1215 ; The Year Of Magna Carta”.  Habeas Corpus is contained in Magna Carta & the core of English Common law in the UK and virtually every British possession. I had assumed Magna  Carta is about protecting the common man.It ain’t. The sole purpose of Magna Carta  was to protect English barons from King John. That the common man was also protected a bit was serendipity, nothing more.

The Magna Carta, by limiting the King’s power over the Barons, was a tiny step to limit centralizing absolute power.  The Papacy didn’t like it, and U.S. Founders loved it, so it was even a tiny step towards Secularism.

Other parts, such as specific mention of the d’Athée Family, women’s testimonies, and Jewish moneylenders, would be classified as attainder and unequal justice and banned under our present U.S. Constitution.  And, you’re right, the peasants were still left to harvest the “lovely filth” under all of the levels of feudal authority.  Their freedom, sadly, came much later.

The US is in the unusual position among developed nationsin that Habeas Corpus was at least partly abolished by The Patriot Act and the creation of the Department Of Homeland Security.

True, and the Department of Homeland Security has some serious “mission creep” going on when it somehow gets involved with elections and natural disasters.  It’s almost like they think they’re King Canute trying to hold back the tide with their word.  And the mere name “Homeland Security” sounds Orwellian and Totalitarian.  There have to be better ways to combat Islamic terrorism without giving up the best parts of U.S. and Western culture and civilization.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling. The keyboard doesn't "Respect my "athoritah."

[TheEncogitationer]

Davis,

My kindest sympathies go out to you for all those horrible things you mentioned.

If you were a victim of vandalism and assault and battery, and it happened to you within the Statute of Limitations of your jurisdiction, pursue investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators by all means.  If it ever happens again, try and record everything and pursue these courses of action immediately.

If law enforcement is delaying and shuffling on the matter, record that and show that to every level of authority you can, from local to national.  Network with other victims for added insight on what to do next.

Just because “protected classes” and criminalizing thoughts are problematic doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue justice for criminal acts against yourself.  I hope nothing I’ve said on this subject is misunderstood to imply support of crime and injustice against you or anyone else.

Pursue justice, not because of your immutable, accidental traits, but because you are a rational individual human being who has harmed no one and deserves to live free.

As for ugly names, you don’t have to take those either, but respond to them measure for measure.  If someone calls you an “AIDS faggot,” respond with something like: “Are you a bug-spreader?  Is that why you have AIDS on the brain?”  or “If you breeders hate faggots so much, don’t give birth to them!”  The best comebacks are like Jiu-Jitsu and take the insulter’s words and uses the words against them.  It gets you your dignity back and it’s quite fun too!

Speaking of Jiu-Jitsu– this is not “blaming the victim” but wanting victims to stop being victims–consider learning  Jiu-Jitsu or Krav Maga, Brazillian, or other martial arts or any self-defense training that is legal in your jurisdiction.  It is good exercise and can save your life.  (And rest assured, Krav Maga has nothing to do with MAGA hats.😉.)

Whatever differences we have on this issue, I do want you and yours to have justice and have a free and happy life.  Please keep us all informed on how your struggles are going and be safe and well.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Grammar. Subject-verb agreement can slip by
• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: "Insulters" not "insulators." What am I, Popeye?

[Davis]

Enconginator,

Not ALL of those things happened to me. Some of them were just examples that people face every day. I am not arguing about what the law is. I’m arguing about what it ought to be in places where they don’t have laws that protect vulnerable marginalised people. It is up to people in those countries to decide if they have them or not. However there are several terrible arguments used to justify not having them. One of them is that the constitution allows free speech which is a terrible argument because constitutions can be changed (they are not etched in stone) and if there is a will then it would happen. The slippery slope argument is also a bad one (if we have hate laws then soon the government will start telling us what else not to say) which doesn’t happen in practice (and fear of a bad use of legal change is no reason to not allow the good use of it). The worst argument is that the worst of hate speech isn’t a big deal and doesn’t impact people’s lives (we should just grow a thicker skin and move on) which is easy to say when it is other people who always have to grow a thicker skin and live daily with the consequences of hate speech. In any case, I’ve heard nothing but excuses from all dissenters here or fallacies. Enact those laws if you like and give all the excuses to not enact them as you please. I just feel sorry for those in such countries who suffer for not having those laws.

[TheEncogitationer]

Jake,

You wrote:

Your use of thoughts and motives is inapposite. American law is all about thoughts and motives. If one accidentally kills another it may not even be a crime. For instance hunters who inadvertently kill another while hunting have committed a misdemeanor. Mens rea is the heart of criminal law. Hate crimes are justified and necessary. What does a culture stand for? What are its values and priorities? If we are to better ourselves we ought to protect the historically vulnerable groups from hate speech and fuck the racist/homophobic etc perpetrators of hate crime.

The function of motive in our system of law is mostly forensic.  We use motive to narrow down the list of suspects.  Even then, we don’t use motive alone, but such facts as time, place, the weapons involved, proximity and relationship of the victim and the suspects, audio/video evidence, DNA sampling, etc.

And, yes, malice aforethought is one of the elements to establish a charge of murder.  But once malice aforethought is established, we don’t have gradations of murder sentences based on the type of malice.  Murder is murder whether the malice is robbery, envy, romantic jealousy, power, delusion,  “kicks,” or hate.

And all crime victims deserve justice whether they are victims of a hateful “Other” or whether they are victims of someone they know, befriend, are kin to, or love.  One of the first basic (and  disturbing) lessons of criminology is that the overwhelming majority of crimes are among people who know each other, usually of the same demographic grouping.

Probably the only thing that would result from passing “hate crime” laws and “hate speech” laws is that hate groups would shed their regalia and go about in three-piece suits or Soccer-Mom wear, and use sterile PC-speak, and because of that, they would be even more dangerous.

[TheEncogitationer]

Davis,

You wrote:

Also Encog. your argument about the Ku Klux Klan is totally fallacious. Just because a group of people supported lots of terrible things doesn’t mean everything they supported was terrible nor is it the case that if they support things for the wrong reasons that the same policy is useful for the right reasons or in the right contexts. Check out rationalwiki’s page on fallacies. There’s all sorts of examples of fallacies that are good to avoid.

I am familiar with Rational Wiki and the list of fallacies and they are useful.  But Rational Wiki’s entries with “Ku Klux Klan” in the search engine turn up nothing good.

Now I know “You ain’t from around here, are ye?” 😉

Seriously, the least worst thing about the Klan is their ridiculous speeches and modes of expression.  They not only committed horrible lynchings, but even made hideous post-cards photos of them, as if to say: “Ya’ll come!  Wish you were here!” 🤮

There is an old superstition about not wearing white after Labor Day.  The only good thing anyone could say about the Klan is that they didn’t believe that superstition.

Their sheets and hoods didn’t come in a Rainbow pattern, so you can safely assume they didn’t like LGBTQ+ people, along with their long list of un-favorite persons.

They actually had a version of The Holy Bible that they called The Kloran.  So none of us Atheists are on their dinner guest list, just in their shopping list for fire kindling.

[TheEncogitationer]

Davis,

In an earlier post, I was addressing you and Jake and I accidentally posted “Christ” instead of “Davis.”  My most sincere apologies. 😁

Now see, this is another danger about “hate speech.  With Autocorrect and Autofill, people can say awful things by accident.  I’m turning these things off before I text something worse. 😜

[Unseen]

Kristina wrote:

In the Masterpiece case, I don’t recall any evidence that they were required to make a ‘gay cake’. That is to say there was no known request to put any associated LGBTQ+ images or symbols, to write any messages in favour of same-sex marriages, or to even have a groom-groom topper on the cake. While the cakes were technically custom, that doesn’t mean the clients had asked for anything the bakery didn’t offer to the general public already.

The bakery won the right to deny service in a Supreme Court ruling that didn’t really address what I am talking about. Requiring people to serve anyone who wants to do business is a principle that’s hard to apply rationally.

For a while, I was in business doing marketing graphics and writing. I advertised, so in a sense I was working for the general public (in that field, you don’t need a walk-in storefront). Are you saying I had to take any job someone wanted me to do simply because I was available to the public? That my motive for turning it down would be a consideration? Suppose the client just made my skin crawl, for example.

What about a portrait painter? S/he has no right to decide which projects to take on and which not?

What about large-scale projects like construction? If I ran a construction business and someone comes in with a project I just don’t feel like taking on, I should be obligated to take it?

[jakelafort]

Encogitationer, there is so much wrong with your most recent post directed to me that i am convinced you are not human. Instead you are Encogibot, a bot to cause brain rot. Wow, your understanding of law is a little awful. Perhaps it is because it comes from a tendentious source?

You left a big fat hunk of tasty cheese in your treatment of hate crimes and hate speech. I shall for the moment keep my thoughts in abeyance. Mouse trap averted.

I see how efficiently this marketplace of ideas is. You and Unseen have moved my persuasion needle not an iota. I am guessing Davis has been similarly persuaded. And that goes for you and Unseen as well. Aaah the human mind…if we married our spouses with the steadfastness we marry our ideas the percentage of divorces would drop like a rock. And then there are ideas if we can fairly characterize em as such of historical hatreds that are as neuronally sticky as ideas of religious orthodoxy. Yeah, we should give those infected with hatred viruses license to propagate those mind viruses. The more the merrier. That way free speech is enshrined in even the most icky speech…the market of ideas will work this shit out…and modern technology can give a catalytic boost to the purveyors of hatred. The stage is set as we speak in Murica. Lets see how it plays out.

[—]

Unseen wrote:

The bakery won the right to deny service in a Supreme Court ruling that didn’t really address what I am talking about.

It didn’t win the right to deny service. It ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission hadn’t remained religiously neutral.

Requiring people to serve anyone who wants to do business is a principle that’s hard to apply rationally.

That’s not what is required. What is required is not refusing business on the basis of discrimination against protected classes.

For a while, I was in business doing marketing graphics and writing. I advertised, so in a sense I was working for the general public (in that field, you don’t need a walk-in storefront). Are you saying I had to take any job someone wanted me to do simply because I was available to the public?

NO ONE IS SAYING THAT. What is being said is that you cannot refuse on the basis of discrimination against a protected class. I do not understand what is so difficult to understand about that distinction.

[Author]

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