Opus 2016-79: Discernment Watch: Hate Crimes and Free Speech

Currently the politically correct crowd is making a big deal of something that they call a hate crime.  If you murder someone that is a crime.  If you murder a person in a special protected class it becomes a hate crime which is somehow worse.  It seems to me that you generally don’t murder someone you love and dead is dead, so I miss the point.  Since I believe that first degree murder deserves the death penalty, I don’t see how you can punish the criminal any more. 

The problem with the idea of “hate” crimes is that it gets into judging a person’s thoughts instead of their actions.  This is the first step toward attempting to criminalize speech that you don’t agree with.  Geert Wilders, a Belgian politician is in court for “hate speech”.  He said something about not wanting Moroccans in his country.  For this he is facing charges.  The trial “pits freedom of speech against freedom from discrimination.”  It will be coming to a court near you.

The purpose of the First Amendment was to protect political speech.  The only kind of political speech that would need to protected would be speech you did not agree with.  Thus it would seem that the Constitution says we have to allow all speech whether it expressed hate or love. 

I was surprised to find that there seems to be some Biblical support for the concept of “hate crimes”?  Check out this verse and the context.

(Numbers 35:20 KJV)  But if he thrust him of hatred, or hurl at him by laying of wait, that he die;

The context is how do you deal with homicide.  If you read through it you will find that the concept of different levels of guilt and punishment is laid out.  This verse refers to what we might call first degree murder.  It is deliberate and thought out.  You hate someone enough to plan their demise.  If you kill them in a fit of rage it is a different category.

So yes, the Bible could supply you with the category of “hate crime”, but it is just a matter of definitions.  If you hate someone and lose your temper it doesn’t count as a hate crime.  The emphasis is still on your action.  If you act with deliberation on you hatred, it is a Biblical hate crime. 

We need to stop pushing the thought control that the modern progressives want to institute. 

homo unius libri