Whats Wrong with Thought Crime (“Hate Crime”) Laws?
U.S. Mail: Free Download PDF (.pdf): Free Click here to download PDF What are “hate crimes?” A federal law passed in 1994 (Public Law 103-322) defines a “hate crime” as “a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.” Why do you call them “thought crimes”? Violent attacks upon people or property are already illegal, regardless of the motive behind them. With “hate crime” laws, however, people are essentially given one penalty for the actions they engaged in, and an additional penalty for the politically incorrect thoughts that allegedly motivated those actions. Isn’t there already a federal “hate crime” law? A 1990 law (Public Law 101-275) required the federal government to begin collecting statistics on so-called “hate crimes” from states and local
