He might use his 3rd veto in 7 years! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_on_go_co/hate_crimes But we already knew he hated the disabled when he executed them as the guv of Texas.
He barely signed the current hate crimes bill in Texas when he was gov. It took the daughter(?) of James Byrd who was the infamous Jasper dragging victim pleading with him in the capital to make him sign it.
Good for him. I don't see the reason to federalize crimes that are perfectly fit to be handled by the states. IMO, there should be no such thing as hate crime laws in the first place.
I love the awesome completely misleading and totally biased thread titles lately. So far, one of the few things Bush has done right is to veto the 2 bills he has, and this would be number 3. Yeah, there should have been like 3000 more, but we'll put that aside for the moment. I agree with Matt in the Hat and Chicago1871 on this, except for the feeling dirty part.
Why should Bush have vetoed the stem cell bill? Even though I believe the decision was wrong, I'm curious how this bill navigates around the Supreme Court invalidating the Violence Against Women Act. If it doesn't even try to meet the concerns in that case, it's just political grandstanding, akin to passing an anti-Roe v. Wade law.
Since this is off-topic, it's the only comment I'm making on it in this thread, but I'm not in favor of the government spending money on medical research, especially when it arguably involves the destruction of human life. And I supported the recent Iraq bill veto because it was full of pork and not the right approach to ending this damn war.
And to prove the correctness of your position, are you willing to abstain from all medical treatments and procedures developed via government funding?
So much for most medical research (which is funded by the NIH). No, if only I could afford those drugs I need... That is up for debate (I'm being honest, not sarcastic).
I'm done with that topic in this thread. I'm sure there was at least one topic on the stem cell bill 2 years ago, feel free to resurrect one.
I think it is a good idea to create more federal crimes. Because, then future presidents conspiring with their attorney general can use the failure to bring such cases as a "performance-related" reason to fire federal prosecutors.
I agree with the idea that hate crimes are useless. If it's a crime, it's a crime. Adding extra penalties because the perp hated Jews makes it thoughtcrime, and that's wrong.
I have mixed feelings about federal hate crime legislation. Hate crimes are distinct from other crimes in more than just their motivation. They are unique in that they don't just victimize one person; they terrorize a whole group of people. Still, whether one supports federal hate crime laws or not, the laws should consistently apply to all minority/persecuted groups. If the laws are going to exist, then women and gays should be included.
Why stop there? How about redheads? What about people with whatever the hell the least common eye color is? I have an abnormally large spleen (no, I'm not making that up, I'm quite proud of it ). Do I get special protection under hate crime laws when an anti-large spleen group attacks me? Where do we draw the line on who gets this special layer of protection?
How about when a few thousand large spleen people a year get physically assaulted for having a large spleen.
Where and how? Who decides? And why? Personally, I just don't like to see anyone get treated differently. A crime is a crime, to me it doesn't matter if the victim is white, black, gay, straight, jewish, christian, what the ******** ever. There aren't that many of my people out there. Luckily thus far it has just been name calling though. "Spleeny" is one of the more hurtful names out there. But if it does come to fisticuffs, I want to know that I, as a minority, am protected under these same laws.
The legislature and the courts. Because they were elected/appointed to do so. That's fine for you. A murder is a murder. But to gay people, Matthew Shepard's murder was different from other murders. Vandalism is vandalism. But to me, spray painted swastikas on a synagogue are different from other graffitti. Hate crimes are not defined by who the victim is anyway.