Improved Clinch

Some Thoughts on Hate Crime Legislation

One of my favorite movie lines comes from the Blues Brothers. Jake and Elwood are driving in their old cop car and come upon a group of Illinois Nazis rallying and promoting their facist propoganda. Jake and Elwood’s forward progress is impeded by these rallying idiots, and when Elwood explains to Jake, who has just been released from prison, the reason for the Nazi rally, Jake utters this line, "I hate Illinois Nazis," upon which being uttered, Elwood guns the old cop car forward into the rallying goose steppers and sends the Illinois Nazis scattering.

I thought of the above movie scene this morning as I read George Will’s opinion piece on HR 1592, the pending Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.

Will’s piece politely excoriates this foolish piece of legislation, and here are a few of the more pointed barbs Will tosses HR 1592’s way.

Congress does not mind being duplicative—mandate enhanced punishments for crimes committed because of thoughts that government especially disapproves of. That is, crimes committed because of, not merely accompanied by, those thoughts. Mind-reading juries are required to distinguish causation from correlation.

And this.

Hate-crime laws are indignation gestures. Legislators federalize the criminal law in order to use it as a moral pork barrel to express theatrical empathy. They score points in the sentiment competition by conferring special government concern for more and more particular groups.

Laws hold us responsible for controlling our minds, which should control our conduct. But government increasingly wants to inventory and furnish our minds, removing socially undesirable desires. Law has always had the expressive function of stigmatizing particular kinds of conduct, but hate-crime laws treat certain actions as especially wicked because the actors had odious (although not illegal) frames of mind.

Will’s piece also contains some statistical data on hate crimes, a small tally of special interest groups who are lobbying for this, and correctly notes that this legislation is mere Congressional “moral exhibitionism.”

A Bustling Hate-Crime Industry

Posted by on 05/13 at 04:56 AM