Quote:
Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Because it offers additional protection to certain groups of potential victims that is not available to others. Because it implies that attacking/killing a [__fill in the blank__] is somehow worse than attacking/killing other people, and therefore has the effect of establishing a harsher set of sentencing options for [_not blank_] perps. Because it has the effect of imposing criminal penalties based on thought instead of action. I find that quite disturbing.
|
If you kill a black person because he is black, rather than because you are married to him and find him smelly, it has a more profound effect on the rest of us. The former crime affects all black people in a way the latter does not. And you are not punishing thought, you are punishing the action of killing. This is like suggesting that it's wrong to punish first-degree murder more severely than manslaughter because you are punishing the intent behind it, and not just the effects. Um, yeah.
