But conservatives see somebody committing what we worry may be a "hate" crime, and we put our armor up. Oh crap. Another nut who thinks I've got his back. Another nut that is going to be used as a caricature in movies to define me.
Who decides what it is proper to think? The people who hate us? Who hurl "fuck you" as a debating technique?
That being said, I may depart from the commonly held conservative belief that prosecuting something as a hate crime is entirely Orwellian.
In most violent acts there is intent to harm an individual. There is a perpetrator and a victim.
Hopefully there is an investigation and a trial. Someone is sentenced, and that's it.
With what our lawyers would call a hate crime, the crime is not only is what the person was thinking when he or she committed the act, but the crime is an attempt to instigate a riot. Not only was a person victimized, a social wound was salted. People on both sides start rifling through their mental gun closets looking for the right weapons and ammo, because there's a bogeyman out there, and both sides are trying to fight it. We scramble around in the dark with no flashlight and shoot each other.
I agree we should let the facts come out. But if this ends up being a hate crime against gays, perpetrated by a nut in red white and blue who thinks I've got his back, then I think we should do what my grizzly mountain man paw-in-law likes to say he would do. Cut a little slit in his stomach, pull out his intestine, hammer the end to a tree and force him to walk around it. When he collapses, cut off his eyelids and piss in his eyes. Then we should do what Preston says.
That's my 2 cents.
5 comments:
It's a nice statement that's very true: bigots are frequently conservative, but being a conservative doesn't mean you're a bigot. If that's not understandable, a Venn diagram can be helpful.
However, one of the authors of this blog, Nigel, immediately used this 100% American tragedy to make a slap at Muslims in the original post on this incident.
A little more policing of your own would do wonders in distinguishing conservatives from bigots.
Hey Justin, sorry you got your panties all bunched up.
Go ahead and search "Islamotards" here, and you might see where I got my off-beat take (but as you libtards like to say when you swing and miss "still accurate")
Was it necessary? No, it was gratuitous.
And in light of everything that was uncovered after I made that comment, certainly tasteless.
But then nobody ever accused me of having good taste.
So, if I understand correctly: Yes, you tried to distract readers from making the (fallacious) connection between conservatives, bigotry and violence by living up to the stereotype of the bigoted conservative with some gratuitous (and speculative and inaccurate) Muslim-bashing while the bodies are still warm.
Not seeing the 'miss' part of my swing.
But then nobody ever accused me of having good taste.
Indeed.
But I did catch your attempt at a little anti-semitism in the other comment string.
Nothing anti-semitic about a factual report, nor any suggestion on my part that Jews in general condoned what he did. As I recall, your average Israeli was horrified and quick to condemn Goldstein's actions, as they should be.
(That's how this game works, right?)
Well, that depends. Michele made the very valid point that "bigot" and "conservative" are not synonymous. I observed that you're trying very hard to undermine her point. You've agreed that you're quite happy with gratuitous, inappropriate Muslim bashing.
If you're suggesting that I'm trying to demonize you, you might start by demonstrating where I'm wrong in the above summary.
"Not only was a person victimized, a social wound was salted. People on both sides start rifling through their mental gun closets looking for the right weapons and ammo, because there's a bogeyman out there, and both sides are trying to fight it. We scramble around in the dark with no flashlight and shoot each other."
Uh oh. I think you two guys just made my point.
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