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Turning
thoughts into crimes
by Richard Cohen (R-Handjob)
Last April, Christine Quinn,
speaker of New York's City Council, honored members of the police
department's Hate Crimes Task Force and jokingly said she looked
forward to the day she could
put them out of business. Since that day, the city seems to have gone
on a hate-crime spree,
culminating early this month with the torture of three men in the
Bronx, purportedly for being gay.
Too soon, you might say, to disband the Hate Crimes Task Force. You
would be wrong.
Almost as bad as hate crimes themselves is the designation. It is a
little piece of totalitarian nonsense,
a way for prosecutors to punish miscreants for their thoughts or
speech, both of which used to be
protected by the Constitution (I am an originalist in this regard). It
is not the criminal act alone that
matters anymore but the belief that might have triggered the act. For
this, you can get an extra
five years or so in the clink...
The upshot combines Orwell with Kafka.
What is the crime? Attempted murder?
Or attempted murder on account of hate?
Whom does the perpetrator hate, and
how much does he hate him or her? On Long Island, some goons
felt a solemn obligation to rid the area of Hispanics. Hate, pure and
simple. But one of the perpetrators
had black and Hispanic friends -- and a swastika tattooed on his leg.
Was he racist or, as his father
maintained, just a dumb kid? Did he really hate Hispanics or just
Hispanic immigrants and, anyway,
what did it matter? Their victim was dead -- the ultimate crime. Should
his killers get life for his death
-- and another five years for what they thought of him?"
Are there two Richard Cohens at the Whore Post?
I could swear in the past I've seen him make sense - but not today.
Hey Dumbass, there's a thing they
use at criminal trials called "motive."
If you're driving a car and a bee stings you and you miss
a stop sign and run over a man,
that's different from saying, "When he comes out
of that bar, I'm going to run that SOB over."
Why do you pretend those two things are the same?
Did the Whore Post hire someone too
stupid to tell the difference?
Admit it - you KNOW the difference.
You're just playing the whore to please your Whore Post masters.
Admit it - you just want it to be legal to kill queers.