“If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ~George Orwell
ThoughtRogue: This development, the passage of The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act in Congress, is so disturbing on so many levels it provides further proof that our U.S. Constitution is flat-lining as we speak. Remember when the vaunted, blindfolded Lady Justice carried a sword in one hand, and a scale in the other? Well, now she is to wield a group-identity cattle-prod in one hand, her num-chucks of empathy in the other, and will flail her opponents with eyes-wide shut as she takes careful notice of the litigant’s skin pigmentation, apparent genitalia, unverifiable claims of sexual “orientation”, flash judgements as to their apparent means, etc., and now most importantly, speculation as to guesses of what MAY have been going on in the perpetrator’s mind (thoughts) at sometime contemporaneous with an alleged crime which MAY have impacted their motivation for such crime!
Can we not agree that all serious crime, especially violent crime, involves some “hate” – whether it be self-hate, hate against society, hate against those of different means, or hate against someone because of some perceived wrong? But, the legal standard should be based solely on alleged ACTIONS, because they are verifiable (remember proof, facts?) I shudder to think what new capabilities this Hate Crimes “Prevention” legislation affords the police. What – they’re so good at mind-reading now, that they can “prevent” crimes by reading your mind before you commit the crime?
This supposed ability of the judicial/law enforcement system to somehow read minds with accuracy AND certainty, in order to criminalize these thoughts (motivations, intentions, haaaate), and to therefore assign it its own punishments, are ipso facto, criminalizing the alleged thoughts themselves! Are we still living in America? This obsession with “hate” (feelings, gov.-approved ideology, etc.) and “group rights” and group feelings and grievances is abjectly anti-American. If we let Big Daddy criminalize our thoughts, you cannot possibly ever live free – exactly as illustrated in the novel 1984. This new anti-Americanism is an abomination. Equal application of an abomination is further spreading of the abomination. The way to vanquish this societal cancer is not to apply it “equally”, but to EXCISE IT from our law and society. Will the Obomatron administration sign this abomination into law? Stay tuned…
‘Thought Crimes’ Bill Advances
By Nat Hentoff, senior fellow of the Cato Institute

Big 'Mack' Daddy is Watching over You!
Why is the press remaining mostly silent about the so-called “hate crimes law” that passed in the House on April 29? The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed in a 249-175 vote (17 Republicans joined with 231 Democrats). These Democrats should have been tested on their knowledge of the First Amendment, equal protection of the laws (14th Amendment), and the prohibition of double jeopardy (no American can be prosecuted twice for the same crime or offense). If they had been, they would have known that this proposal, now headed for a Senate vote, violates all these constitutional provisions.
This bill would make it a federal crime to willfully cause bodily injury (or try to) because of the victim’s actual or perceived “race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability” – as explained on the White House Web site, signaling the president’s approval. A defendant convicted on these grounds would be charged with a “hate crime” in addition to the original crime, and would get extra prison time.
The extra punishment applies only to these “protected classes.” As Denver criminal defense lawyer Robert J Corry Jr. asked (Denver Post April 28): “Isn’t every criminal act that harms another person a ‘hate crime’?” Then, regarding a Colorado “hate crime” law, one of 45 such state laws, Corry wrote: “When a Colorado gang engaged in an initiation ritual of specifically seeking out a “white woman” to rape, the Boulder prosecutor declined to pursue ‘hate crime’ charges.” She was not enough of one of its protected classes.
Corey adds that the state “hate crime” law – like the newly expanded House of Representatives federal bill – “does not apply equally” (as the 14th Amendment requires), essentially instead “criminalizing only politically incorrect thoughts directed against politically incorrect victim categories.”
Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, think hard about what Corry adds: “A government powerful enough to pick and choose which thoughts to prosecute is a government too powerful.”
But James Madison, who initially introduced the First Amendment to the Constitution, had previously written to Thomas Jefferson on the passage of the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom: “We have in this country extinguished forever … making laws for the human mind.” No American, he emphasized later, would be punished for his “thoughts.”
However, doesn’t the House “Hate Crimes Bill” state that nothing in the legislation shall “prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition” – or speech “protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses in the First Amendment”?
Remember, however, as Kathleen Gilbert notes (LifeSiteNews.com) that “free speech advocates have pointed out that under current U.S. law, any action that ‘abets, counsels, commands (or) induces a perceived ‘hate crime’ shares in the guilt of that crime and is therefore punishable.”
But doesn’t this new bill slip in an insistence that “evidence or expression or association of the defendant may not be introduced as evidence at trial unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense”?
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