"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
Thomas Jefferson
A form of tyranny over the mind of man that Jefferson feared has taken root under the guise of the politically correct war on so-called prejudicially motivated acts of violence—they call it Hate Crime, what it really is, is Thought Crime.
The story for public consumption on this concept is that some crimes are motivated purely out of hate for race, religion or national origin, and thus are somehow worse crimes than others that have the same result—although I’ve yet to hear of a murder that was committed out of pure love and affection for the victim.
If Moe kills Curly and uses a racial slur to describe Curly during the murder, somehow that is worse than if Moe kills Larry and says nothing. The fact remains however both Curly and Larry are dead at the hands of Moe. Under the Hate Crime Law, the prosecution of Moe for murdering Curly can be treated differently and the punishment much more severe than for Larry’s murder. The difference here, according to these laws, is the thought in Moe’s mind when he killed Curly. Murder is an overt act but hate stems from thought—an internalized process. What is “hate crime” then if not the ability of the state to first determine and then prosecute man based on his thoughts?
It’s obvious to me that people’s thoughts now come under federal jurisdiction and we can be prosecuted more stringently for harboring what government has determined to be unacceptable thinking while committing a crime. The instant we accepted this legal premise as valid, we opened the door to limitless interpretations and applications of the concept. And who determines what hateful thoughts are added to the politically incorrect list—government—and under the guise of compassion for the victims and the preservation of law and order!
Hate crime legislation has been cleverly sold to America by employing the time tested method of using a noble label to hide the underlying intent. In this case, the ruse of upholding civil rights, punishment of bigotry, and discrimination was the noble banner displayed to get buy-in from main street America in order to justify the existence of a law or any extension of that concept—and therein lies the ultimate danger—the extension of that concept.
The power to prosecute is the power to control. When we can be prosecuted for the nature and content of our minds, we will have lost the liberty that is born of free thought and expression because there is no limitation as to what can be considered unacceptable. The ability to adjudicate and prosecute thought could very well lead to suppression of all free thought that doesn’t comply with the politically correct as determined by those in power at the time. This then is clearly a form of that tyranny over the mind referenced by Jefferson.
What is to stop those in power from escalating and corrupting this further? What prevents government from expanding the law to include conspiracy to commit a hate crime? Conspiracy to commit hate possibly defined as hate speech, hate talk radio (attacked under the “Fairness Doctrine”), hate rallies, hate looks, hate insinuations, hate gestures, hate mail, hate pamphlets, hateful political ads and demonstrations using ‘hateful and mean-spirited signs’…such as “Down with Politicians.” Definitions will be liberally defined after the conspiracy statutes are on the books and it then becomes possible to put down, control and restrict opposing thoughts, ideas and speech under a banner of upholding the law through the classification of such activity as hate crimes.
This is dangerous incrementalism at its worst and extreme in its consequence but is exactly where it leads. Government officials have been seeking to expand that power from the beginning by adding categories to the growing list of those covered under hate crime statutes….
"President Clinton brought together law enforcement experts, community leaders and hate crime victims to highlight the need for every American to get involved in eradicating the cycle of prejudice and violence.... But we want to do more. The Justice Department has jurisdiction over federal hate crimes based upon race, color, religion and national origin. But the federal hates crime statutes do not permit us to investigate or prosecute most offenses motivated by a victim's disability, their gender, or their sexual orientation."
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, January 1998 (http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1998/January/004.ag.html)
Conspiracy to commit hate crime is the next step as I see it and the follow-on restriction and probable elimination of free thought and its child—free speech—all legally done under the law! Remember this:
“Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order.”
John Lindsay
When man loses his freedom of thought, he has no freedom left. The mind of man is the ultimate vestige of independence. A former Justice of the Supreme Court warned of this several years ago when he said:
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”
Justice William O. Douglas
To my way of thinking, this Hate Crime bilge is nothing but the planting of a dangerous seed that will grow into a freedom strangling vine—it’s a crime of historic proportions. The power and desire to prosecute thought is a crime against humanity for it criminalizes one of the greatest God-given gifts of all to mankind—his independent intellect. The eventual offense committed by government in exerting jurisdiction over free thinking men through the use of hate crime legislation as its genesis is the tyranny of which Jefferson spoke and a much worse transgression against free people everywhere than any individual crime ever committed—regardless of the hate involved.
Just the view from my saddle…
Contact Colonel Dan: coloneldan@bellsouth.net