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    The Noble RenardBrendan O'Connor
    6/07/15 10:45am

    Since the Grays have already started posting awful shit about hate crime laws all being so terrible and hurr durr thought crime, I thought I’d just put together a few notes on hate crime laws that always come up during these moments.

    1. Hate crimes are not separate criminal offenses, they are sentencing enhancements. So if you commit an assault on a black person because that person is black, you are charged with assault and then the potential sentence range is increased because of the motivation.

    2. In the criminal justice system, we always punish people more or less harshly depending on what their motivation was for a crime. Punishing a person more harshly because they attacked someone for racist reasons is no different than punishing a person more harshly because they refuse to show remorse for murder, or punishing a person less harshly because they only stole something to feed their child. Sentences are expressed in the law in ranges exactly for this reason; we want to give judges the ability to choose to go easy on some people and go hard on others.

    3. Similarly, in the criminal justice system, intent matters. We decided as a society centuries ago that an important part of “justice” is taking each individual defendant’s state of mind into account. So even if two defendants do the exact same physical act, with the exact same result, their crimes may be different depending on what their state of mind was. The best example of this is murder vs. manslaughter. If I point a gun at a person and pull the trigger, and the gun goes off and kills the other person, why I was pointing the gun and what I thought might happen will determine what crime I committed. If I intended to kill the other person, I am guilty of murder. If I stupidly thought the gun was unloaded and did it as a prank, I am guilty of reckless manslaughter. That’s one of the purest examples of why intent matters.

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      ylleeblahblahThe Noble Renard
      6/07/15 10:55am

      Your points 2 and 3 are redundant. Motivation and intent, same thing

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      burn123454321The Noble Renard
      6/07/15 10:59am

      It’s nice that you’ve explained the reasons behind hate crime statutes, intent, and all that, but I think the reason the “Grays” are talking about hate crime laws is neither this story, nor the source material seem to illuminate WHY a hate crime is being added.

      There seems to be no evidence reported that the attacker identified the woman as trans before pushing her. Going back to the original story it seemed like the police were investigating it as a hate crime simply because the victim was transgendered, like it was the only reason this could have happened. The homeless guy may just be mentally unstable, he had a criminal history of destructive behavior but nothing that would suggest he was targeting the victim simply because of their orientation.

      It could just be coincidence that the victim was trans. A hate crime charge shouldn’t be added simply because the victim is trans.

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    Life is a PlaylistBrendan O'Connor
    6/07/15 10:50am

    But why do they keep shoving Bruce Jenner down our throats? It’s not like they aren’t free to live however they want. I just don’t want to see it. That family just wants ratings! He’s no longer a great Olympian to me because he decided to become a woman (I guess what I’m really saying if women don’t belong in sports).

    Signed,
    Angry Conservative unaware 1,500+ transgender people are murdered annually for being such

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      Hello_Madam_PresidentLife is a Playlist
      6/07/15 11:36am

      “What’s brave about getting plastic surgery?!” “Let me show you who a real hero is!”

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      iGatsbyLife is a Playlist
      6/07/15 11:42am

      I think you are going to love when jenner starts stumping for the GOP next year. You know she herself leans conservative right?

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    BurnerMansBrendan O'Connor
    6/07/15 10:29am

    Things overc has said

    • Response to: Duggar Sister Says Josh Paid for His Own Therapy After Molesting Girls

    The really great day will be when condescending liberals get theirs. They claim to know better than everyone else, but the only thing they’ve ever accomplished is to ruin this country.

    http://gawker.com/the-really-gre…

    • Response to: Philadelphia City Councilman Attends “White Lives Matter” Rally

    How is a “white lives matter” event any less acceptable than a “black lives matter” event?

    http://gawker.com/philadelpihia-…

    • Response to “Use Google Searches to Figure Out How Racist Your Neighborhood Is”

    Racist is just a word liberals use whenever they’re losing an argument.
    http://gizmodo.com/racist-is-just…

    • Response to Huckabee’s transphobia

    He is correct. Males and females were made for reproducing the species, no other reason.
    http://gawker.com/he-is-correct-…

    • Response to “how to fix a racist frat”

    Liberals say “racist” the minute they start to lose an argument.
    http://jezebel.com/liberals-say-r…

    • Response to : “Social Security Paid Out $20.5 Million to Suspected Nazis”

    Some were not depraved, they were just everyday citizens following the rules to survive. This could happen to us at any time, our government is requiring more and more from us and we’re just going along and not questioning anything because they say we’re supposed to. They’re making us take illegal immigrant children into our schools in greater numbers than our own children. They’re requiring us to educate them and feed them and catch the diseases they bring into the country and spend more of our tax money on them than we do our own children. How much more ridiculous could things get? If they suddenly said you have to be a part of some military force and kill all people of a certain race or class or else go to prison, most people would do it for that reason alone.
    http://gawker.com/some-were-not-…

    Why does it matter whether they’re Nazis or not? If we can freely pay illegal immigrants anything they want for no good reason whatsoever, what does it matter who gets our money illegally?Why bother having any laws at all? I can understand legal immigration processes (which many of the Nazis probably went through), and taking in refugees who need our help (again by going through a proper procedure), but I do not understand opening the borders to anyone, any time, and handing them our hard-earned money.

    http://gawker.com/why-does-it-ma…

    • Response to Churchill saying some very bigoted/racist things:

    These were the standards at the time and were admired. Based on their definitions of right and wrong, these were right. One day people might look back on our times and say our views were wrong.
    http://lifehacker.com/these-were-the…

    • Response to “School Throws Away 10-Year-Old’s Hot Lunch Because Her Account Was Empty”

    I thought liberal public schools were supposed to be all about compassion. Why do we keep hearing stories like this?
    http://gawker.com/i-thought-libe…

    • Response to “”You Don’t Belong Here”: Black Long Island Family Receives Racist Letter”

    Not a nice thing to do, but what’s the crime?
    http://gawker.com/not-a-nice-thi…

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      helloagainandagainBurnerMans
      6/07/15 11:01am

      You have way too much time on your hands.

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      HotelCoralEssexBurnerMans
      6/07/15 11:04am

      If you find those comments offensive, NEVER read the comment section of any youtube video.

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    PardonMyFlemish16Brendan O'Connor
    6/07/15 11:10am

    So if someone pushed someone else of the same gender, race, sexual orientation and religion onto the train tracks, would that not be a hate crime? Why does that distinction matter?

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      DarigaazPardonMyFlemish16
      6/07/15 12:53pm

      A hate crime is where a member of a vulnerable group is targeted specifically because of their membership to said group. A white man sets fire to a black woman’s house because she is black. A group of straight men and women beats a gay man because he is gay. A man murders a woman because she is a woman. The distinction matters because crimes that specifically target race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion have a psychological effect on members of the group being targeted, particularly when it comes to violent hate crimes where the victims are not just murdered but severally beaten or tortured before death.

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      PardonMyFlemish16Darigaaz
      6/07/15 1:12pm

      Everyone on a subway platform is a member of the same group with regards to vulnerability. Plus it seems like it is being rendered a hate crime for no other reason than the differences in attributes of the perp and victim. How does one determine the discriminatory “hateful intent”? If it were a man pushing a man or a trans pushing a trans would it be any less “hateful”?

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    johnnymooreBrendan O'Connor
    6/07/15 10:34am

    It doesn’t seem like the hate crime charge would actually stick but it is nice to see it being handed out seemingly more often these days (obviously the not nice part is that it is needed at all)

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      Life is a Playlistjohnnymoore
      6/07/15 11:04am

      How do you know it will not stick? You should look up what “being charged with a hate crime” actually entails.

      The article says he made incriminating comments to the police. How do we know they did not include slurs against transgender people? That’s be a pretty clear example of a crime being committed with a hate component.

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    UpsideDownPersonBrendan O'Connor
    6/07/15 10:48am

    I am so glad the victim made it out okay. She’s lucky she didn’t get seriously hurt or, worse yet, get hit by a train.

    I am guessing it’s going to take her a while to stand on a subway platform again without the fear of getting pushed onto the tracks. Nothing ever happened to me, but I could never stand at the edge of a subway platform. So many maniacs around and no security whatsoever.

    Poor woman.

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