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Hate Crimes in the U.S.
Over the past few weeks, we have witnessed two incidents of brutal hate crimes. The first was the June 1st killing of George Tiller, an abortion doctor in Wichita Kansas. The second was the killing of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns yesterday in Washington, DC. The connection between these two incidents is that both victims were killed because of their jobs.
Dr. Tiller provided controversial medical services to women, which, although legal under the U.S. law, is still hotly debated in society. Johns was allegedly murdered by James W. von Brunn, an anti-Semitic white supremacist, because he was working as a security guard at a museum which commemorates the Holocaust.
Both of these two incidents show that hate crimes persist in our society. In light of these two incidents, I would argue that someone needs to stand up, and declare that hate crimes are not acceptable.
When President Obama was elected, some Americans assumed that race no longer divided us. If the U.S. was able to elect an African-American president whose middle name was Hussein, we must have moved beyond internal divisions. In light of these two incidents, I would argue otherwise.
I challenge those of you who oppose such crimes to take action. Write a letter to your senator. Make a donation to a legitimate organization that fights intolerance. Challenge a stereotype that you may hold or create a group to fight intolerance.
Comments
re
Houses and cars are not cheap and not everyone is able to buy it. But, loans was invented to support different people in such kind of hard situations.
Yes the abortion is
Yes the abortion is considered the murder, but there are uncountable cases of abortion in only New York and no one can action.
Hate Crime - The Reality
Hate crime results in terrible suffering and should be taken more seriously.
There was a terrible attack on a woman in Liverpool. Her name was Kerri Delacruz. Four thugs killed her dog, then cut her breast open. When the bleeding stopped they re-opened the wounds. They were at it for over an hour. Absolutely ghastly. Then to cap it all, when the police caught one of them, they let him out on bail - why?!
See these for links to the story
http://kerridelacruz.wordpress.com
or
http://kerridelacruz.iblog365.com
and
http://webshouter.wordpress.co
Response to your response
You wrote:
I do think this killing should be included in the definition of hate crimes. If a mother's life is in danger by her pregnancy she should be able to terminate the child (no matter what your views on abortion). Killing the Dr. who provides such service is a crime born out of hate.
I respond in turn:
What you think “should” be included in the definition of any word is immaterial. The percentage of abortions that are performed because of the mother's life being threatened, is less than 2%, and what you are attempting to do is to prove a point by using the least utilized rationalization for abortion. Trying to prove a point by using the minority of situations and spread that reasoning over the entirety is a poor method of formulating a strong position.
In confronting your reasoning for including the Dr.'s killing as a crime of hate, you try to leap over what is required of you in order to prove your point. It is necessary for you to take on the aforementioned definition of a hate crime, namely that the hate is born because of that person's inherent qualities not their actions, and prove why this should be altered. Instead you offer your specific perspective as substantial proof of validity for your cause.
Therefore, if you were to view abortion as murder, specifically late-term abortions, then would this crime still be “born out of hate?” Of course not, then there is a perspective that allows for this murder to be justifiable based upon the offender's actions. Thus arriving at the central reasoning that I have attempted to humbly relay to you, namely that a person's actions are able to be refined, while a person's born into being whatever they are cannot be.
In the United States and in my own perspective what this man did to the Dr. is not justice and the man that committed the murder should be prosecuted, but do not think that our cultural viewpoint is ubiquitous. In many African countries, those that perform abortions, even ones that threaten the mother's life, are considered murderers and are executed (I am not advocating this position). In other words, your attempt at re-defining a hate crime to fit your cultural bias and tainted perspective does little to assuage my concerns over the repercussions that would resound if you had your way in changing the definition of a hate crime.
Definition of Hate Crimes
Your combination of these two crimes belittles the incident that happened at the Holocaust Museum and is intellectually dishonest. A hate crime is defined by the University of Mary Washington as “a criminal offense committed against a person, persons, or property that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, national origin, or sexual orientation.” It noticeably leaves out a crime on the basis of a person's actions. There is a rather straight forward explanation for this, actions are able to be changed while the above are, for argument's sake, part of the person's inherent and inseparable makeup. Whether or not a society condones a certain behaviors, does not make those behaviors morally correct. Late term abortion, which can include termination of viable fetuses, is a reprehensible act. I understand the argument of the Woman's Rights Movement, that women should have control over their bodies and that requiring women to carry a pregnancy is unfair. But where the termination of a fetus that is viable on its own, without the nurturing of his or her mother, what is the argument? What is the difference between termination of a late-term fetus and a mother smothering her postnatal offspring, besides the terminology? To define a fetus as the entire gestation is another semantic joke. This equates a non-viable entity and a viable one, making it easier to discuss abortion in terms of the “fetus.” Getting back to your article, you state that Dr. Tiller performed “controversial medical services to women,” why not state his explicit profession, that of performing late-term abortions? To say that the procedure is hotly debated doesn't reference the 36 states that have a ban on this procedure. In addition, you even concede that this is “still hotly debated in society,” while I would like to point out that antisemitism is no longer “hotly debated in society.” Antisemitism is a true hate crime and therefore should have the term applied to it. I agree with you that hate crimes are unacceptable, but you do a disservice to hate crimes by including the death of Dr. Tiller. Hate crimes need to strike urgency in the hearts of the people, which gets watered down by including a crime that is not covered by the definition of the term. As a Jew, you should be particularly sensitive to how a hate crime is defined, therefore I urge you to re-think your inclusion of Dr. Tiller's death as a hate crime.
Reply to Definition of Hate Crime
While I understand your position on the definition of a hate crime, I do not agree nor support your argument in seemingly making hate crimes a worse offense than the murder of Dr. Tiller. You argue Sara Reef's combining the Holocaust Museum and Dr. Tiller's murder as "belittling and intellectually dishonest", I need to point out that your argument and effort to define hate crimes is belittling women's need for late-term abortion (after all, you do not know each woman's story nor experience). I would have been much more open to your statement if you had not tainted it with your obviously biased perspective of late-term abortion. Next time, I hope you can stick to your main subject and not dilute it with your skewed views.
Hate crimes
We all seem to agree that in a democratic society, citizens cannot be required to approve of the beliefs and practices of others but citizens must never commit criminal acts on account of their beliefs and practices.
One man's meat is another man 's poison. There will always be differences of opinion and the American society is the perfect experiment in balancing difference of opinion while maintaining civil harmony. As a nation that values free speech, free thought, free expression and expansive liberties we cannot tolerate individuals executing judgment on behalf of society. Your liberty to swing ends where my nose begins!
I agree with you when you say that Hate crimes need to strike urgency in the hearts of the people- but I disagree when you say that the urgency gets watered down by including a crime that is not covered by the definition of the term. The definition of the term is not set in stone. The people have an inherent right to modify the definition if they choose to exercise that right. The people also have a right to security at their work place, they have a right to practice their beliefs without fear of a mob lynching.
The race, religion, disability, national origin, or sexual orientation of the victims is not the central issue at this point, what is important for us to know as a society is that there are people amongst us who will pick up an assalut rifle and shoot us in broad day light only because we disagree with them or even work at a place that offends them!. Dr. Tiller's death compared to the Holocaust shooting does not belittle the Holocaust incident it only amplifies that its dangerous to be "a certain type of person" when there is a trigger happy "other type of person" out there! I think the original posting got that point across nicely.