Nat Hentloff’s column, “Hate-crime laws: The real message” (Oct. 9) suggests that hate crime law is an attack on a free people’s ability to speak and think what they may. Other arguments can be made against the hate crime bill
Nat Hentloff’s column, “Hate-crime laws: The real message” (Oct. 9) suggests
that hate crime law is an attack on a free people’s ability to speak and think
what they may.
Other arguments can be made against the hate crime bill now
being pushed in Congress by Clinton and Gore.
The cases of James Bird and
Matthew Shepard are cited as reasons for piling on hate crime punishment. Bird
was a black man dragged from a truck by the neck until he was beheaded. Shepard
was a gay white man beaten and left dying on a Wyoming fence. However, no
evidence exists that shows the states of Texas and Wyoming ignored the
prosecution of these murders. The criminals involved in both cases were either
sentenced to death or given life without parole. What good would be done by
piling on punishment in these cases? The killers got maximum sentences from the
criminal justice system of their respective states.
Laws should be written
in a precise manner. So-called hate crime law is impossible to accurately
define. The “thought police” will have to work overtime figuring out who is and
who is not biased to whom when crime is committed.
Should Congress become
further involved in local policing or federalizing crime, one may ask: Why have
a state criminal justice system? Get rid of it. Refund the tax money used to
support it. Let the central politburo (Justice Department) in that far away
African-American town, Washington D.C., busy itself with all the police powers
in every county in every state. In the 20th century, Mussolini, Hitler,
Hirohito and Joe Stalin collected all power in a centralized city.
Even the
term United States could be changed to the Empire of Washington
D.C.
DOUGLAS E. RAPOZO
Kapa’a
