What’s Wrong with the World

This is obviously a crime, and the perpetrators ought to be prosecuted on several charges. But what good does a special category of "hate crime" do, other than stoking identity politics?

Steve is not advocating that there _be_ special categories of "hate crimes" but rather that there not be a double standard. It is bad enough that special categories of "hate crimes" should have been established, but it is even worse if, when crimes obviously motivated by racial hatred are performed in one direction, they are specially punished, but when they are performed in another direction, they are treated as "business as usual." That double standard merely confirms what we opponents of "hate crimes" said in the first place--namely, that these were and are blatant attempts to violate the principle of equal protection under the law so that one race or religion receives special protection over others.

Moreover, there is the small matter of honesty. Evidently police are supposed to make honest judgments on these matters, particularly when this sort of motive is so blatant, whether or not they approved in the first place of the establishment of such categories of crimes based on motive. What is happening here is obviously deception--deception of the public and perhaps deception of police by other police or self-deception on the part of investigators. They are bending over backwards to pretend that this crime was not motivated by racial hatred, because it is not politically correct so to conclude. It does no good for those of us--myself included--who think that hate crimes categories should not exist to _on that basis_ dismiss as unimportant such blatant deception of the public by law enforcement.

I'm writing a computer program that can generate 99% of the predictable positions asserted on this blog. I think I can write it using only two principles, and three color terms. Stay tuned.

Is K. not a small AI program running on a cheap Linux box in some freshman dorm?

Yeah, what does it matter if a family gets the tar beaten out of them by a black teen gang yelling racial supremacist slogans? Blacks are a minority in the U.S. population, and the number of black teens who go around wilding is smaller still. So just don't happen to be standing around innocently in the wrong place at the wrong time after a fireworks show in Akron, Ohio, and you'll be fine.

I had a similar moment of confusion when I learned the Matthew Murray church shootings (he who said "You Christians brought this on yourselves!" before murdering four innocent young strangers) were not counted as hate crimes.

Complaints about the arbitrariness of hate crime law are like pre-1960s complaints that Freedom of Speech is arbitrary and inconsistent in not protecting obscenity and pornography.

In that context, it was obvious both that speech was rational, not merely expressive, and that free speech protections traditionally intended to exclude obscenities.

In our context, it is taken for granted that "hate crimes" are only committed by majorities against minorities and that this likely reflects the intentions of those who enacted such laws. Hence those who try to argue for consistency are met with the disdain once reserved for pornographers whose bad faith was presumed.

it is taken for granted that "hate crimes" are only committed by majorities against minorities and that this likely reflects the intentions of those who enacted such laws.

That's why such laws are unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.

"Yeah, what does it matter if a family gets the tar beaten out of them by a black teen gang yelling racial supremacist slogans? Blacks are a minority in the U.S. population, and the number of black teens who go around wilding is smaller still. So just don't happen to be standing around innocently in the wrong place at the wrong time after a fireworks show in Akron, Ohio, and you'll be fine."

This comment sure puts the hurt on all those people (a.k.a the empty set) who argue that crimes committed by minorities are not crimes.

I think there's a lot of truth in these statements about the intention of those who pass hate crimes legislation, but it is true that government entities (e.g. FBI) which keep count of "hate crimes" do in fact have a category for such crimes against majorities. So the legal situation is ambiguous. On the one hand, I think those who pushed for such laws were to some degree acting in bad faith insofar as they pretended that these were not intended only for application in one direction. On the other hand, that pretense is by no means entirely abandoned even in the present day, given record-keeping activities of law enforcement agencies. So the analogy to free speech and obscenity is, I believe, not correct. It is not as though law enforcement pre-1960's _claimed_ that obscenities were protected as free speech. But it is the case that right now law enforcement _claims_ that it is indeed possible for "hate crimes" to be committed against majority citizens, and this claim is bolstered by the existence of some such crimes actually being so labeled. That only makes the sickening deception in cases like the one Steve links all the worse.

Thanks, Lydia.

Michael - totally agreed. I think that "hate-crimes" legislation is a huge crock.

K.: you're not clever enough for your sig.

;^)

If only I could think of something as clever as my own name, Steve. If only...

K.: you're not clever enough for your sig.

I've been waiting for someone to say this! Now I shall go to bed happy.

Of course, only a reactionary could really adopt such a nom de cyber, inasmuch as the best analogy to the literary character K would be a normal person attempting to make sense of the arbitrary ukases of the therapeutic, managerial liberal state, in which hate crimes laws figure prominently as liturgy.

There's a word for people who pepper blogs with provocative comments while withholding their real names: "trolls." Personally, I'm not interested in their care and feeding.

"There's a word for people who pepper blogs with provocative comments"

It may seem provocative, but I merely ridicule the ridiculous.

In any case, I really don't intend to troll. I'll move on.

Thank you.

We reserve the right to modify your comments in the future if you back out on your pledge to move on.

As an aside to the fact that only straight, white males can commit "hate" crimes, I was watching Top Chef Masters last night ( a so so program), and during the introduction for chef Anita Ho (no jokes, please) she talked about coming from a multi-cultural family. Then I saw pictures of her family and they were not multi-cultural, they were uni-cultural. Chinese-American, that is.

I was telling my wife that I'm more multi-cultural than that. My stock is English, Irish, Romanian, Jewish, American Indian, Catholic, Protestant. My daughter's parents are one from the West Coast, one from the East. Two different cultures there plus all the rest, and yet being white makes me non-multi-cultural, right?

Oh well, what can you do?

What of the pseudonyms of those who wrote the Federalist Papers?

Are we really ready to go off the plank and suggest that any usage of a pseudonym is "troll" like?

Joe the Plumber was out on the front yard with his kid, when his propery was overrun by a candidate who effectively insisted on engaging him in a dialogue. Joe asked him a question, which the media had been determined to avoid. Obama, off the teleprompter, as usual, blundered badly. For Joe the Plumber's temerity, his privacy was violated, and he was thrust out onto a stage, with a level of publicity that he never sought.

Who here thinks that's consistent with American history, with American civil and political discourse?

Why the insistence on accurate names, Christian and surname?

Pretty amazing how obvious it can get.

If you believe this story then I know a nice Nigerian man who would like to contact you about an investment opportunity.

This homeschool family claims that 30-50 black kids attacked them, on a neighborhood street, just after the city fireworks display was over, chanting “this is our world.” The video of the father shows no signs of struggle. The daughter, a frail little thing, has no visible wounds despite her story that she was bleeding and pulled one of the attackers off her father. The mother has no visible wounds. They don’t sound in shock or scared, despite talking about how scared they are. Not a single witness can confirm that even one of these 50 kids was there. There are no suspects.

The police aren’t calling it a hate crime because they have enough sense to realize the story probably isn’t true.

Yeah, and the hospital kept the guy for five days because the hospital is in on the "homeschool" conspiracy. The Beacon Journal has also obviously been taken in by a hoax.

I assume that "Reality" is talking about this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXpV2ivgp4A

His mention of home-schooling is interesting; I guess it's supposed to add weight to his claim that this must be a hoax.

That's always possible, of course. Many high-profile cases of "hate crimes" have turned out to be fraudulent. Tawana Brawley, the Duke Lacrosse Team non-rape case, Madonna Constantine, etc.

But I don't think the video helps his case much.

I don't know if the article was posted with the race in the opposite on purpose or not. Maybe so to show how people would react to what really happened.

Here is the real story. Whites were attacked by blacks.

http://www.ohio.com/news/50172282.html

Funny that some seem upset that the fact that they were white and the alleged mob was black is excluded from the headline - despite the fact that's made clear in the article, yet my mentioning the fact that they are homeschoolers has a couple of people all a twitter. Guess only certain facts are important eh?

The little girl is a lousy actress. (She can't sleep? She won't talk to anybody? Give me a break. She has no trouble putting her little mug on camera and talking about it.) And how did the dad who was getting beaten senseless figure out that all 50 were black? The mother threw the son into the bushes? What's that about? It'll be interesting to find out what really happened to these people and why they felt the need to lie about it. I suspect it's just another case of a hate crime hoax, but what you want bet Michelle Malkin won't mention this one?

BTW, there was no fireworks display at Firestone Park on June 27th as the victims claim. Maybe if there had been there would have been some witnesses.

So they lied about the existence of a public event, yet both the newspaper and the police failed to immediately pick up on this?

You know, there's nothing wrong with banning obvious trolls.

Reality:

There were fireworks that night:

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:4apst9rezhcJ:www.firestonepark.com/calender_209.htm+%22Firestone+Park%22+%22Akron,+Ohio%22+June+27+fireworks&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari

If you're going to make stuff up, don't do it on my watch. I can track it down and put it up so fast it will make your head spin.

Frank

Yes, it's amazing how many group-of-wilding-black-teens-beat-up-white-family hoaxes there have been. Oh. I guess not. And in this case the newspaper reports a hospital stay of _several days_, which is awfully hard to believe if the guy just walked into a door and then made up this elaborate story. Hanging a noose on one's own door, of course, doesn't require one to be injured at all...

"Reality" - would you care to revise &/or extend your claim that "there was no fireworks display at Firestone Park on June 27th" in light of Frank's link?

And what's this "all a twitter" stuff? I wrote that your "mention of home-schooling is interesting; I guess it's supposed to add weight to [your] claim that this must be a hoax."

That's your idea of "all a twitter?" Hmmm...you *are* an excitable fellow, aren't you!

Obviously, you find the Marshalls' story about what happened to them *prima facie* implausible. But, based on quite a few years of living in (shall we say) marginal neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Oakland, Chicago, and Washington D.C., where unprovoked black-on-white attacks are fairly routine, I fear that I must disagree.

You want anecdotes, from personal experience?

Or would you just assume that I was making them up?

The fact is that a black can walk into virtually any white neighborhood, at any time of day or night, certainly those nice white surburbs with shopping malls and Office Maxes and Tully's coffee shops etc, without any care in the world, but if a white person tries to walk through a black neighborhood, he has to fear for his life.

The only justification for this, once the black or Leftist apologist is pressed, is that the white person "has it coming" for the "legacy" of racism and slavery. How much longer must whites tolerate this? It's absurd. Frankly, I would support white supremacist organizations if they weren't anti-Semitic.

"Supremacist" in what sense? Are you sure you have used the correct word? I am asking because I have been called a "Christian Supremacist" for insisting that there is an innate irreconcilable discord between Christianity and Islam calling for maximum separation between the two.

Let's not go off the deep end here. What is meant by "Black neighborhoods" is usually inner city ghettos that aren't safe for anyone who doesn't live there to walk through, and remarkably unsafe even for people who do live there. No doubt that some of this crime is racially motivated, but I've seen nothing to suggest that most of it or even a significant potion of it is.

Also, I don't know why everyone insists that Islam and Christianity can't exist together. I can conceive of a neighborhood where Christians and Muslims live together peacefully, and given the existence of such neighborhoods in the US it should be obvious that Muslims are not all single mindedly bent on domination.

Not that any of this -- either the subject of the OP or of this video -- is a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention: Holder Admits: No Equality Under Hate Bill - by Ted Pike (a ten minute YouTube video)

Michael Liccione: "There's a word for people who pepper blogs with provocative comments while withholding their real names: "trolls.""

While "K" is clearly "trolling," I don't think the definition of "trolling" implicit in this comment is at all workable.

For one thing, on the internet, (nearly) everyone -- including those who use their actual names as their screen-names -- is anonymous. For example, I neither know "Michael Liccione" nor know of "Michael Liccione;" to me "Michael Liccione" is as anonymous as "Ilíon" is to "Michael Liccione."

For another, "provocative comment" is just an emotive characterization meaning "stuff that *we* (and “we” outnumber “you”) don’t want you to say."

K. offered an argument or two for his position, which was treated fairly by some and called "idiotic" and "ignorant" by others. Meanwhile the person who called my claims "idiotic" and "ignorant" admits that he himself is a white supremacist supporter (minus the anti-semitism, which, of course, is the only element that keeps white supremacy from being palatable). But of course K. is a troll, and the white supremacist supporter is just voicing his opinion.

So from what I can gather, the answer to "What's wrong with the world?" is the following: 1) Muslims, Blacks, and K. 2) Anyone who disagrees with 1.

What happened to 'moving on'?

Right. The problem is the fact that I'm commenting, and not the fact that a regular here claims that the only problem with white supremacy is its antisemitism.

Matt Weber,

Also, I don't know why everyone insists that Islam and Christianity can't exist together. I can conceive of a neighborhood where Christians and Muslims live together peacefully,...

Well, there is no end to what one can conceive of. Besides, we are not talking of neighborhoods, but societies where culturally and religiously differing groups naturally seek political influence to preserve their identity and promote their values including, as in the case of Islam the “value” of dominance over others. This is in contrast to a neighbourhood where concerns are limited to proper functioning of infrastructure, cleanliness, safety etc and, assuming a certain level of “domestication” of its individuals, can be relatively easily resolved.

The fact that you can have a well behaved Moslem neighbour is absolutely not a assurance that a thousand of Moslem neighbours would still behave well to you. There are completely different forces coming into the fore involved in shaping the relations between groups than between individuals and the bigger the group the stronger the forces. When you are dealing with a group following supremacist, imperialistic, religious ideology you have a very serious problem. Please, give yourself time to study the consequences of Moslem inundation in Europe and following it collapse and destruction not only of neighborhoods and communities, but sometimes entire towns and you may try revise your optimism.

The problem is the fact that I'm commenting, ...

AND that your comments are moronic and noiseatedly boring

So really: what happened to 'moving on'?

Haha! If you really wanted me to leave, it's not exactly conducive to write comments like that about me, Mr. "Muslims are "Moslems.""

Time for a ban yet?

Incidentally, K, if you wish Hesperado to be held accountable for the things he says, then it doesn't make much sense to insist that you not be held accountable for what you say. So I'd say it's time to move on, no?

Believe you me, I am currently suffering from a severe commentakrasia disorder, and perhaps a ban is the best medicine. But honestly, what have I said that's as bad as saying that white supremacy should be supported if only the movement lost its anti-semitic attitudes? And what have I done that's worse than sitting back and letting someone get away with such a statement without argument?

Actually, "Hesperado" has been around, by my recollection, as a frequent commentator only slightly longer than K. I say that merely as a matter of institutional memory and because Mr. K. characterizes him as a "regular." For the record.

I am going to my cold and silent whatswrongwrongwiththeworld.net grave: my lamp of comment life is nearly extinguished: my race is run: the comment grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom! I have but one request to ask at my departure from this (what's wrong with the) world--it is the charity of its silence! Let no man write my epitaph: for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them. Let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my internet tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my internet character; when my past comments take their equal place among the comments on whatswrongwiththeworld.net, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.

"Time for a ban yet? "

Can't be too late...Or can it?

...Let no man write my epitaph:

His epitaph should be: "here lies a silly and hopelessly boring troll and shameless plagiarizer from Robert Emmet." And, most probably, quite a few others

I really wish that I could leave in peace, but I guess I have to respond.

I wasn't the one that made the fireworks claim, and, lest you think I'm just being slippery, I didn't post under the name "Reality" either.

And of course I plagiarized from Robert Emmett.

SIlly Person Who Certainly Seems To Be A "Troll:" "... Mr. "Muslims are 'Moslems.'""

'Moslem' is the English word of long standing to refer to the "Slaves of Allah" (and, more importantly, slaves of that Mohammad fellow).

'Muslim,' as an English word referring to the same folk, has its origin in multi-culti and poseur political corectness.

... it would help if I'd spelled 'correctness' correctly, nicht wahr?

To K. - oh, for goodness sake - don't be such a drama queen.

And please stop worrying about being banned. You're not even close.

To everybody else: short of libel, obscenity, &/or unmerited personal abuse of other commenters, I really, *really*, prefer not to ban anybody.

May the chips fall, & may the fur fly, as may be.

Hesperado: you were doing sort of OK up until this:

"I would support white supremacist organizations if they weren't anti-Semitic."

Ummm...excuse me?

May I ask what particular "white supremacist organizations" you would support, were it not for their anti-Semitism?

Just out of curiosity?

steve burton,

Well, as many of us know, labels can be accurate or inaccurate, fair or unfair -- particularly labels like "racist" and "fascist" that have become enmeshed in tendentious propaganda practiced mostly by Leftists. Thus, a "white supremacist organization" may or may not really be one, but often becomes hopelessly and forever deemed to be one. I'd categorize the BNP that way. And as far as anti-Semitism, I have found that charge against them insufficiently argued -- so they could well be one such organization. In my statement here I set it up with two elements:

1) using the conditional mood "would"

2) basing that "would" on the intolerable situation that has developed where black-on-white crimes are outrageously asymmetrical -- both in quantity and savage quality -- when compared with white-on-black crimes; and the injury of this is compounded by the PC MC / Leftist insult of a framework of Reverse Racism whereby

a) blacks can get away with practically any degree of racist hatred, both in verbal expression and in physical violence

b) whites, by contrast, are almost always -- even when it's not even true -- accused of "racism" and "hate" when they do the same things and often even when they do far milder things, both in quantity and quality

c) there is an implicit doctrine that the reason for (a) and (b) is the history of white slavery and oppression of blacks, as well as the putative continuation of a kind of crypto-oppression even nowadays, and that this reason justifies (a) and (b)

d) there is an even darker implicit posture lurking in PC MC / Leftism that black-on-white violence itself is, because of (c), not only understandable and justified, but actually redemptive for white sin and guilt

e) and finally, there is another implicit posture attached to (d) that tends to put off forever that redemption of whites through being physically assaulted, beaten, tortured, killed by blacks -- i.e., no amount of groveling by whites will ever suffice to expiate their sins and guilt, and so their physical chastisement must go on forever -- apparently because it is of the essence of whites to be sinful against blacks. Or another way to put it is that this indefinite chastisement is precisely the redemption of whites, but it remains a purgatory that has no end.

But (d) and (e) are only implicit senses that supply logic to (a-c) to the extent that PC MCs, Leftists and blacks seem to provide no end game to their constant exculpation of black-on-white violence and constant vilification of whites.

3) Thus, because of (2), perhaps I should have worded my statement "I am sorely tempted to support a white supremacist organization, etc." At any rate, when something becomes intolerable, and when that something involves mass lynchings and various racist murders of alarming frequency and number, one wants to call in the Hell Angels to police the rock concert, so to speak -- even perhaps with an accurately labeled organization.

However, those who are more alarmed at my comment than they are at the amount of black-on-white violence can take grudging comfort in the fact that apparently, outside of the BNP, there is no such animal as the "white supremacist organization" that is pro-Jewish.

May the chips fall, & may the fur fly, as may be.

Thank you...there is far too much hyperventilating in these comboxes. If someone wants to be anonymous, criticize him if you will, but let him. If someone wants to post something which is ridiculous, then demonstrate it as being so. The level of defensiveness is extraordinary.

Hesperado: for what it's worth, I am not "more alarmed at [your] comment than [I am] at the amount of black-on-white violence."

Quite the contrary.

Hesperado:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

Thanks Step2. From your link:

From 1976 to 2005 --

86% of white victims were killed by whites
94% of black victims were killed by blacks

That means that the vast majority of blacks are killed by blacks, while 14% of whites are killed by non-whites, and only 6% of blacks are kiled by non-blacks (that 6% undoubtedly includes a healthy proportion of Hispanics in gang violence).

Oops, my bad. I confused Reality with K. My apologies to K. I will remove the comment.

I wish you guys would use your real names. It's difficult to keep up with all the pseudonyms.

Frank