puszysty

I watched In Excelsius Deo the other day, and I've got to thinking. Not only do I think CJ is right, I don't think the President and Danny's argument of "we can't punish people for what's inside their heads" stands. We can and we already do. The criminal justice system distinguishes between premeditated (first degree) murder, murder in the second and third degrees, and manslaughter, (not to mention self-defence and insanity pleas, which both work toward with harsher sentencing for the more intent involved. In other words, we're punishing people based on "what's inside their heads."

There can be other arguments against hate crime legislation (danger of overusing it, it's hard to convict so what's the point?, etc.) but I don't think this one works.