From the Dept. of You Can't Make This Up:
It's currently a Canadian phenomena but the seeds, if not the saplings, are strewn throughout western democracy. In short, we're only a few short steps away from thought crimes.
Hate crime legislation sounded like a really feel-good idea at the time to many of the progressive sort (read, sensitive) for crimes perpetrated against their fellow man for no other reason than his ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, and anything else that wasn't white, male, or presumably redneck. The thinking was that we needed to put the firm boot of the state against the posterior of those individuals and groups who, left unchecked, would evolve into something similar to the Nazi's. We use the Nazi's as an example because they're not only conveniently dead but are the only group that the progressive mind can focus on as unilaterally evil. (The Soviet Union, the Chicoms, Castro, and Pol Pot were mostly just misunderstood!)
And who doesn't feel the rage rise that someone might be tortured or harmed just because of their difference from the rest of us? We take seriously our obligations as a society as a whole, knowing that the worst of us tar the rest of us with their filthy brush. You lynch a black man or a homosexual just because they're black or homosexual, well, we've got something special for you.
There's a couple of problems with the sentiment that expresses the idea that one lynching or murder is more heinous than another. The first is that we've already got laws against the actions condemned. Those supporters of hate crimes legislation who oppose say, the death penalty, might want to rethink their position on the latter. They also might want to revisit positions on imprisonment and rehabilitation. It's a very fantastical area we enter into when cold blooded murder is viewed differently based upon what peculiarities the victim may have shown. I have a grudging notion that murder alone should be enough for the harshest of agreed upon sanctions. If that sanction is life imprisonment I hope to be forgiven if I'm less than impressed by the fact that the perpetrator of a hate crime got two life sentences, although I do get a chuckle out of it when they add the part about serving them consecutively.
The larger problem with regarding one murder, or hate crime, as being more significant or abominable than another is that it set's up a whole series of protected classes. These protected classes are individuals who then receive special rights, above and beyond those granted them as full citizens of a democracy. That's where we encounter the ghostly cousin of hate crime, the hate speech. If it's a special crime to lynch a citizen of a certain type then surely it's a special type of speech that assaults the senses or the existence of that citizen. Most people recognize this for the foolishness that it is, not the least for it's assault on such as the First Amendment right to free speech. But the impulse remains alluring to just do away with all that nasty divisive speech by those racists, bigots, and other misanthropes.
The trouble with hate speech laws, usually enforced by a nation's human right's commission ala Canada, is that they are instituted in democracies. And what seemed like a needful law in the first place must later be given equally to all members of a democracy. The end result is empowerment of the offended. Call someone a bad name or make a statement about their religion or ethnic group, or their fellow group members and you'll end up before a tribunal. It matters little if what you said happens to be true. And in Mark Steyn's case in Canada, even quoting a member of an aggrieved ethnic group can be enough to trigger the sanction of the state. We'll get better at this; soon we'll be able to tell what you're thinking even before you say it. This will shorten up the bureaucratic process no end.
How does all this play out to our north? Well, the latest is that you don't even have to have a victim to be convicted and you don't even have to say anything hateful. Saying or publishing something that is disparaging or offensive to someone, anyone apparently, is enough to land you in the dock in Canada. And you'll get a lifetime ban on disparaging remarks and you'll have to pay the expenses of the non-victim who filed the charges. Oh, and in this case, you have to publicly renounce your religious beliefs. Other than that, you're apparently free to go about your business.
Here's the details, and no this isn't the Steyn case:
What could Mark Steyn's punishment look like? Look at Alberta - Ezra Levant
Lest anyone is the US or the rest of the western world get complacent and think this is just the result of some obscure mad moose disease, rest assured it's coming to a neighborhood near you, and soon. Both liberals and conservatives should realise that this trend is one that ultimately slits all throats equally.
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