Tories and the gays

[Ideologue]

It expressed mild disagreement.  It just seemed odd to delete it, is all.

[Martinus]

It expressed mild disagreement.  It just seemed odd to delete it, is all.

I thought I wanted to develop in it - then realized I am later for work so will do it when I get to the office.

[Martinus]

So to get to the point, I was referring more to hate speech laws which imo are a derelict of blasphemy laws only that what we consider "sacred" has changed. I don't like it and think the liberal side's efforts to introduce its pet causes in this "sacred" group (sexuality, gender identity, race, Holocaust etc.) are misguided as they should instead be working to bring down the existing sacred cows (such as religion or "nation").

As for the murder sentences and the like, I am a bit on a fence there. In principle there are recognized precedents of penalising some comparable acts more strongly because of the intention (e.g. euthanasia vs. "normal" murder) or the victim's identity (e.g. cop murder). Then again I hear RH's arguments that this creates this sense of unfairness (I feel that way about higher penalties for cop murder for example - I don't think a cop's life should be worth more than a civilian's life - and yes, I hear the arguments about public order and whatnot but I don't buy it the same way someone may not buy the arguments that murdering a tranny is more damaging to a public sense of safety than murdering an ordinary person).

And yes I use the word tranny. Sue me.

I think in principle I am against victim-based penalties but I am fine with *some* differentiation based on intent (i.e. there should not be a higher penalty for murdering a gay guy than for murdering a straight guy, but there is something to be said about giving a higher penalty to someone who murders a gay guy because he is gay than to someone who murders a gay guy during a robbery attempt). But then agaiin I am not sure we need a special cathegory of crimes - I mean, judges usually get some discretion in sentencing that could deal with this without having a legislative intervention. But then again, e.g. in Poland many judges are homophobic so perhaps you need to force their hand a bit.

So as I said I don't know. I guess the paradox with such laws is that by the time there is a sufficient majority to pass them they are no longer needed.

[mongers]

"...........the imprisonment, for incitement, of Peter Wildeblood, the diplomatic correspondent of the Daily Mail, Michael Pitt Rivers and Lord Montagu....." 

...

I went to school with his daughter.

[Barrister]

Yes, the sentencing tariff for murdering a disabled or transgender person here in the UK has recently doubled :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16089715

Needless to say that I do not approve of the murder of disabled or transgender people. But I am somewhat peeved that my life would appear to be only half as valuable 

I think these changes may well be counter-productive and offend people's sense of fairness; and it is that sense of fairness that has led to acceptance of different lifestyles.............so it is foolish to undermine it.

It is not that your life is only half as valuable, but rather that you aresubstantially less likely to be murdered for being a middle aged white male than a transgendered person is likely to be murdered for being who they are.

[Valmy]

I don't know if the fact RH's bloody murder was unlikely will comfort his ravaged corpse that much.  Likewise why would the unlikeliness of it impact sentencing?

[Barrister]

I don't know if the fact RH's bloody murder was unlikely will comfort his ravaged corpse that much.  Likewise why would the unlikeliness of it impact sentencing?

If a certain crime is more prevalent sentences will be higher in order to deter it from happening.

[Ideologue]

It expressed mild disagreement.  It just seemed odd to delete it, is all.

I thought I wanted to develop in it - then realized I am later for work so will do it when I get to the office.

That's so fucked up.

[The Brain]

I don't know if the fact RH's bloody murder was unlikely will comfort his ravaged corpse that much.  Likewise why would the unlikeliness of it impact sentencing?

If a certain crime is more prevalent sentences will be higher in order to deter it from happening.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, the sentencing tariff for murdering a disabled or transgender person here in the UK has recently doubled :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16089715

Needless to say that I do not approve of the murder of disabled or transgender people. But I am somewhat peeved that my life would appear to be only half as valuable 

I think these changes may well be counter-productive and offend people's sense of fairness; and it is that sense of fairness that has led to acceptance of different lifestyles.............so it is foolish to undermine it.

It is not that your life is only half as valuable, but rather that you aresubstantially less likely to be murdered for being a middle aged white male than a transgendered person is likely to be murdered for being who they are.

But if we extend that reasoning we get all sorts of anomalous results. People are more likely to be murdered in their youth, for example, than their rather more staid and stay-at-home middle age. If someone murders a male then they should get a longer sentence than for murdering a female.........and so on.

I don't like it. We pay judges good money for their experience and knowledge, they should decide if a particular murder should incur a greater or lesser sentence.

Drinking my coffee now, I see that your point is different to the one I answered 

So, to try and be more specific, why is hatred toward a disabled or transgender people being treated differently to hatred directed at a white hetero male or a woman? How many hatred-free murders are there anyway? Come to that, is a hatred-free murder relatively inconsequential.....as in "there was no hatred involved, the victim was just in the way"?

[Martinus]

Yeah, judges should not be actuaries.

[Jacob]

But if we extend that reasoning we get all sorts of anomalous results. People are more likely to be murdered in their youth, for example, than their rather more staid and stay-at-home middle age. If someone murders a male then they should get a longer sentence than for murdering a female.........and so on.

I don't like it. We pay judges good money for their experience and knowledge, they should decide if a particular murder should incur a greater or lesser sentence.

Drinking my coffee now, I see that your point is different to the one I answered 

So, to try and be more specific, why is hatred toward a disabled or transgender people being treated differently to hatred directed at a white hetero male or a woman? How many hatred-free murders are there anyway? Come to that, is a hatred-free murder relatively inconsequential.....as in "there was no hatred involved, the victim was just in the way"?

As a philosophical point, I tend to agree with you. But I think the increased punishment for hate-crimes is a fairly natural reaction to and attempt to reverse the discrimination these particular groups have experienced.

It's not that long ago that you pretty much couldn't expect to see justice if you were the target of violence because you were gay, transsexual, Black or whatever. Yeah, sure, regular laws would apply but violent attacks would often get off much lighter when they victimized those groups - whether it was due to accepting "moral panic" defences, whether it was due to sympathy on the part of law enforcement and the judicial system towards the violent actors and bias against the outsider victims, whether the victims were blamed, or whether it was due to the victims never reporting it because they didn't expect justice.

So hate crime laws are a way both for the justice system to signal to commonly victimized outsiders and society at large that these crimes are indeed being taken seriously, and to institutionally come to grips with the previous problem of bias.

I expect that in some decades some of the hate crime laws might not be necessary on those grounds, but it's not that long ago that you could go gay-bashing with impunity in most Western countries. Various hate-crime legislation has been part of reversing that trend, and as such it has served a beneficial function IMO, and I don't think "we'll treat it as any other violent crime" would've had as much of an impact.

[crazy canuck]

It is the same purpose as having anti discrimination laws.  Sure it is possible that someone might discriminate against a young white male but they are not a group requiring special protection - at least not yet.

[Josquius]

It is the same purpose as having anti discrimination laws.  Sure it is possible that someone might discriminate against a young white male but they are not a group requiring special protection - at least not yet.

In terms of crimes against them...yes, it is so. The trouble with such thinking is it often goes further than "don't actively harm different people" however and into trying to give them a leg up.
Anti-discrimination laws in practice often do mean discrimination against young white males.
Have a young muslim woman and a young white guy, both of whom are equally good for a job, and it'll likely be the muslim who gets it since it would help the company build up their quotas and avoid any chance of them falling victim to anti-discrimination stuff.
Affirmative action stuff is particularly bad for poor white people- they were put in place to stop the dominance of the rich whites but the poor whites are then lumped in with them as the ruling class who don't need extra help.

Yep, I went off topic there and on to a different issue but it is all related. A bit slippery slopey.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Some good posts above. I take Jacob's point that he agrees with me at the "philosophical" level but that pragmatism may well say that the time is right for such discrepancies in sentencing