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STUDENT: I see that the President is going to convene a White House Conference on Hate Crimes.
SOCRATES: Is he in favor of them, or against them?
STUDENT: Against them, of course. Who could be in favor of hate crimes? They're terrible!
SOCRATES: Are such crimes ever actually committed?
STUDENT: Of course they are! Otherwise, why would the President bother to set up the conference? He's a busy man.
SOCRATES: Then some people must be in favor of hate crimes--the people who commit them!
STUDENT: But that kind of people don't count! In a well-run country people would be allowed to shoot them on sight. We can't allow people who commit private violence to run around loose!
SOCRATES: Hm. .... By the way, could you give me an example of a hate crime?
STUDENT: How about gay-bashing?
SOCRATES: In her newspaper column recently, Ann Landers referred to some people who had sent her letters critical of homosexuals as "gay bashers." Is criticism a hate crime?
STUDENT: No, of course not. She was just using the words metaphorically. The hate crime is when somebody beats the hell out of you.
SOCRATES: If robbers beat the hell out of you to keep you from calling the police before they can get away, is that a hate crime?
STUDENT: Obviously, it is not. A hate crime is one that is motivated by hatred. Robbers are motivated by self-interest.
SOCRATES: If there is a general rule against beating people up, would it cover both the actions of the robbers and those of the gay bashers?
STUDENT: Yes, of course.
SOCRATES: But if, instead, we only had a law against gay bashing, would it also make it illegal for robbers to beat someone up?
STUDENT: I suppose not. Unless, of course, the robbers happened to hold up a homosexual.
SOCRATES: So wouldn't it be simpler just to stick with a general law against beating anybody up and not worry too much about why the victim was attacked?
STUDENT: But it's wrong to discriminate! A law against gay-bashing expresses the moral sense of the community to that effect.
SOCRATES: Perhaps, but are you sure that a rule against gay-bashing is really a law?
STUDENT: It sure seems like a law to me! It makes gay-bashing illegal and punishes violators with fines or imprisonment.
SOCRATES: Presumably a country that has outlawed gay-bashing will also have a general law against beating people up, so as to cover all the situations where the motivation for the beating was not hatred of homosexuals.
STUDENT: That would be a reasonable thing to assume.
SOCRATES: Would the punishment provided by the rule against gay bashing be any different from the punishment laid down by the law that applies to beating people up for other reasons?
STUDENT: I would think the punishment for gay-bashing would be a bigger fine or more years in jail. Otherwise, why bother with a separate law? If the punishment was the same under either rule, it wouldn't be much of an expression of the moral sense of the community.
SOCRATES: Exactly! But let me get this straight. We can have two cases where people are seriously beaten up, equally seriously. The resulting injuries are identical. The physical actions taken by the guilty individual are identical. But you would impose a harsher punishment on the gay-basher because his motivation was a bad one?
STUDENT: I guess that is what it amounts to, yes.
SOCRATES: Would you say that the robber's motivation, by contrast, was a good one? Could we call his action a "love crime"?
STUDENT: No, no one would agree with that! But maybe the robber's motivation is less bad.
SOCRATES: On the other hand, the robber injures his victim in two ways, not just one. He beats him up, and deprives him of property. Maybe the robber ought to get the heavier penalty.
STUDENT: Punishment for deprivation of property is an entirely separate matter, and I'm surprised at you for confusing them. Certainly it would be proper to punish the robber for both offenses, but we are talking only about the punishment for the physical attack.
SOCRATES: In any event, you see no objection to imposing different punishments on people who have taken identical actions if their motivations for acting were different?
STUDENT: Not at all!
SOCRATES: So in effect we are adding punishment for the bad motive to the punishment for the beating.
STUDENT: You could put it that way.
SOCRATES: Then what if somebody is full of hatred and has unworthy motivations galore, but doesn't take any illegal action? Can the law punish such a person?
STUDENT: I don't suppose so. How could it if he hasn't done anything?
SOCRATES: Well, you wouldn't inflict the punishment that is provided for actually beating someone up. That would obviously be unfair if he hasn't clobbered anybody. You'd just impose the penalty that would have been added to that due to the bad motivation. He does, after all, have bad motivation, doesn't he?
STUDENT: But how can you tell what his motivations are if he hasn't done anything?
SOCRATES: Do you mean to suggest that there are problems in proving motivation?
STUDENT: Of course, there are problems! You can't just ask the guy how he feels--he might be lying! But people can see actions. Then we can figure out what the motivation must have been from the actions. "Actions speak louder than words."
SOCRATES: Perhaps. Imagine that a couple of guys beat up John Smith. And they take his wallet. What was their motive?
STUDENT: They wanted his money.
SOCRATES: So why didn't they just take the wallet? Why did they beat him up?
STUDENT: Maybe just to throw him off balance while they got away.
SOCRATES: What if it turns out that Smith is gay? Does that make any difference?
STUDENT: Did the guys know he was gay?
SOCRATES: You've got me there. You'll have to ask them!
STUDENT: Maybe they didn't know! After all, they did take his money.
SOCRATES: That's possible. But maybe they just took the money to cover their tracks and avoid the extra punishment for gay bashing if they got caught! So how does the court figure out what their real motivation was?
STUDENT: It could assume bad motivation unless the robbers proved otherwise.
SOCRATES: What about the presumption of innocence?
STUDENT: How about, instead, the court assumes the motive was just robbery unless the prosecutor proves otherwise?
SOCRATES: But that still doesn't tell us how motivation can be proved one way or the other!
STUDENT: (Long silence.... Sighs) In the old days, we wouldn't have had to worry about this kind of thing.
SOCRATES: True enough. Back then, the government defined the actions which would be considered crimes, drew lines, and punished people who stepped across those lines. Bad desires, evil thoughts, unworthy motivations were considered to be sins, not crimes. Sins were ultimately punished by God, or sometimes by the Church claiming to act on God's behalf.
STUDENT: Which worked out pretty well, since people couldn't conceal their true thoughts and feelings from God!
SOCRATES: Of course the Church was in no better position to be sure about motives than government is. It may be just as well that it got out of the punishment business.
STUDENT: Do you suppose we could ever go back to this kind of division of jurisdiction--"render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's"--so to speak?
SOCRATES: But what would the ACLU think?
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