[ASAN] Call for Hate Crime Prosecution for Murder of Autist

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You must have missed this link I posted:

I don't expect to continue this discussion with you. I am not fond of people twisting my words into things I did not say.

The case you mentioned was not a case of caregivers abusing their disabled charges, so it's not even relevant.

I saw your link. So what?

If I understand your position, which is the topic of this thread, it is that it should be a more serious crime to victimize somebody with special needs than somebody who is normal. You defended this position by telling me that those being sentenced for crimes against children with special needs get lighter sentences than those who victimize normal children under materially similar circumstances.

I'm asking you to show me the evidence that this is the case. Right now, since you have failed to do so, I can't help but think you are claiming two plus two equals five, and when I ask for proof, you are throw a math book at me.

All I'm concerned about is whether or not you can back up your claims. If you can do so, I will agree with you that something needs to be done. I'm not sure how I can be any more reasonable.

While what happened was absolutely horrific and shouldn't have happened, I don't think it should be considered a hate crime. I don't think the term hate crime should exist at all. Murder is murder. The motivation for it shouldn't matter. All ultra-PC terms like hate crime do is just further distance and patronise minorities

Laddo, I agree. I can't think of anything more divisive--as in destructive to social cohesion--than to declare even tacitly that some people's lives are worth more than others. The only criterion is judging the severity of the charges in any crime should be whether that crime was premeditated, not carefully thought out, or a crime of negligence. All other considerations are properly the purview of judges and juries.

This rationale is based upon old English common law, which has been around for many centuries because it works better than anything else that the human mind has been able to devise to date.

Hate crimes are always premeditated, otherwise it wouldn't be classified as "hate" in the first place.
Also, I believe that what Verdandi was trying to state, was that in a court of law, it has been shown through multiple sources that those who have committed a crime against a minority have recieved lesser punishment for that crime, than those who have committed the same crime against those in the majority, and that something being classified as a hate crime is meant to reset the balance of justice, so that all perpetrators will recieve the same punishment for the same crime, regardless of who it was against. Would you prefer that criminals were to keep recieving smaller sentences for committing crimes against minority individuals? Or, are all people, as you seem very familiar in stating, entitled to the same treatment, and the same justice, regardless of classification?

I myself, support balance and equality.

Evidence was demanded Jaden so I feel you are wasting your dispersal of logic here.

Ill-treatment towards minorities is beginning to be regarded in a similar way to ill-treatment to a child: like someone bigger, stronger and better ill-treating something small, weak and defenceless. As a minority myself, I think this is patronising and just further asserts the notion that white, heterosexual, neurotypical people are better than anyone different from them. This way of thinking is born from the ideology that equality = preferential treatment for minorities (and women, who are for some reason treated in the same way as minorities). I suspect this is due to the rise of lawsuit culture. For example, if someone with a disability is hired to keep the number of disabled employees in a business up, and their suitability for the job is lower-priority (this actually happens in the UK) this will be seen as "equality", when it is in fact preferential treatment for bureaucratic reasons. It's the complete opposite of equality and hindering the progress of actual equality.

If I am ever attacked because of my AS, I do not want it treated as a hate crime and thus treated without dignity and equality. In fact, if there's some way I can legally declare that, I will.

If the majority are in denial and view equality as preferential treatment you choose to support this.

If you were attacked because of your AS would you be happy to see the perpetrator receive a lenient punishment due to the mitigating circumstances, ie. your minority status.

That's not what I said at all. I said that the term "equality" now means "preferential treatment". A real life example: Tesco has to meet certain targets regarding ethnic minorities and people with disabilities employed by the company. In my local Tesco, there is a dwarf who works as a customer service assistant. He is always rude to customers, never really seems to be doing any real work and doesn't meet many requirements that Tesco claims its employees must meet. And yet he is still employed by them to meet their business targets and to give the impression that they are an equal opportunity employer. They're not.

If I were attacked I would be happy to see the perpetrator receive a punishment equal to what they would receive had they attacked an NT. Not a more lenient punishment. Or a harsher punishment. I don't think my safety is worth more than the safety of others just because I have AS.

The introduction of the classification of "hate crimes" is based on a "repentance and guilt" ideology. It's a way to "apologise" to minorities for the way they have been treated in the past. It's in the same vein as some men laughing nervously at jokes some women make about how s**t men are (I've seen this before) because they think it will somehow prove they're not sexist. And I think it just makes minorities look defenceless and powerless. I believe in genuine equality, as in all people being treated equally.

I have reserved judgement on the topic as I do not fully understand American law. Which is why I queried this earlier in the thread.

My interpretation of your post still stands.

I do not see the relevance of bringing workplace examples into a discussion of a murder.

More relevant would be the recent manslaughter case of Steven Simpson who was set on fire at his own 18th birthday party. The judge described the events as 'good-natured horseplay' that went wrong. The perpetrator received 42 months, out in 21 with good behaviour?

I'm not saying that the majority are in denial about lack of equality for minorities, as you are implying. I've explained that. And I certainly don't support any preferential treatment in law, whether it be for white people, black people, men, women, healthy people or disabled people.

Workplace examples are relevant because it highlights the preferential treatment to appear unprejudiced. If a neurotypical person is murdered because they support a different football team to the murderer, this would not be classed as a hate crime, despite being motivated by superficial differences between the attacker and the attacked. However, if someone is murdered for being a different race to the murderer, this is treated as a hate crime. Like I said, motivation should not be relevant in a murder case.

Your example highlights the judge making an absurd decision regarding the case. That's a problem with the entire legal system if people like that are allowed to be judges, not what the crime is classified as. It also highlights a case of preferential treatment, which is what classing a murder as a hate crime also highlights. In the mean time, calling a crime this or that won't make a difference to whether morons are allowed to be judges or not

I'm saying that the majority are in denial.

I don't agree with preferential treatment either, in law, work or life. But we are all human and fallible, including judges.

Your point is that equality has been achieved, I disagree, it has not and needs a lot more work yet.

The term hate crime is objectionable but that is the system that we have been given to use. I feel that laws such as these are passed with the best intentions but often fall short in the real world. Interpretation by the public often misplaces the ideal even further, Which is your point that I would agree with.

No, my point is not that equality has been achieved at all. The boy's mother and godmother haven't even been sentenced yet. My point is that branding his murder a hate crime does not make any difference to the fact that it is still murder. If they were to get different sentencing due to the crime being somehow different to murder, that is not equality, and suggests autism as a whole should be protected by the big, brave neurotypicals. There should be a standard murder trial. A hate crime trial would mean that Alex's life was more important than the life of a NT who is murdered for a different reason. I'll say it again. Murder is murder. A more lenient sentence for mother and godmother because of "not being able to cope" with caring for Alex is no different in terms of genuine equality than them getting a harsher sentence because Alex was autistic.

Well I guess we will have to wait and see if they get an appropriate sentence or not.

Jaden, how do you figure that hate crimes must be premeditated? Imagine a black thug who hates white people. He wakes up one morning with no intentions of hurting anybody. Then, when he is out and about, he sees a white person, goes into a rage, and decides to murder that person while screaming all manner of racial epithets at them. This would be a "hate" crime that is by definition not premeditated. Since these kinds of crimes are well documented, I'm curious as to why you think they don't exist.

My best guess is that as a leftist, you cannot accept anything not in accord with your ideology. I would encourage you to transcend that ideology and widen your horizons.

I would say all crimes are hate crimes, crimes of callous indifference, or the bizarre. By definition, we don't victimize people because we like of love them. We victimize people because we hate them, are indifferent, or because of severe mental disturbances.

As far as there being a widespread pattern of disparate sentencing between groups for similar offenses, I need to see some evidence. That's a very serious charge of wrongdoing, and I refuse to countenance such a thing without strong evidence. For what it's worth, I'm going to accord you the same benefit of the doubt whether or not your PC religion allows you to accord me the same. I will think the best of people until I have GOOD reason to do otherwise.

I'm also not convinced that "balance and equality" are served by making the lives and property of some groups worth more than the lives and property of others. To me it sounds Orwellian, as in all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

If you want to convince me you are right, all you need to do is produce hard evidence of a pattern of judicial misconduct. I refuse to accuse others of serious wrongdoing without good evidence, and I'm not sure why my critics aren't willing to do the same. Could it be that for my critics that Orwell was right--that war is peace, hate is love, and ignorance is knowledge? If so, I'm not interested, and you can consider this conversation to be at an end. Just the facts, please.

In that example, it would not and could not be classified as a hate crime because the black thug (in your example) killed the white racist because of the racial slurs, not because he was white or he believed something specific.

All hate crimes are premeditated because the crime is always specific to a certain group, and it's always planned out because of attributes of that certain group. A person can hate white people all they want, but unless they planned the murder it cannot be classified as a hate crime because it wouldn't have been because of hate which requires a target. A proper example of a hate crime would be: A man goes out and kills a number of people (not necessarily in the same night) because they believe in God, or because they're all white, or because they all have AS, because he hates that specific attribute in other people. Hate is always planned, it doesn't just pop up out of nowhere.

Furthermore, if you want evidence to verdandi's posts, ask verdandi about it, the only thing I was doing was clarifying what was said because it seemed that you didn't quite get what verdandi was trying to say.

Last edited by Jaden on 21 Jun 2013, 1:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.