Should hate be a crime?

[Aexodus]

Hate crime legislation could have been written by a child, we need to tear it up and start again (premium article)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Over the last week, a chilling Orwellian tale has gripped the UK. Harry Miller, a docker from Humberside, was investigated by the county’s police force for liking a transphobic limerick on Twitter.

The post was offensive, calling trans women “stupid” and commenting on “synthetic” hormones. Even so, it did not warrant the sinister response it received – more suitable for a country in which totalitarianism prevails.

Clearly with very little else to do that day, Humberside Police recorded Miller’s behaviour as a “hate incident” and warned him to be more careful in the future. This debacle only became known to the world after Miller posted about it on Twitter. Humberside Police has since defended itself on the social media site, writing: “We take all reports of hate related incidents seriously.”



This is just one in a catalogue of events that have quite justifiably left members of the public worried about what they can say, think and even click on. Many are wondering where new efforts to tackle hate crime might lead, as campaigners fight to expand the law to cover misogyny and ageism.

The issue with hate crime is in the definitions. The police, in particular, are working from extremely ambiguous guidelines, laid out on the Met’s website. These could have been better written by GCSE students, and will merely embolden the most brainless to punish harmless internet users.

The Met definition, for instance, suggests a hate crime can be anything from “using offensive language” to “name-calling”. This could mean families and friends arrest each other, should a bit of banter get out of hand. After all, when does “name-calling” become a hate crime? There is no rule, and what triggers Sensitive Susan could have Laughing Lauren in hysterics.

The police guidelines leave too much responsibility to officers to decide the limits of offence, many of whom will have to go with their own personal opinion - or the whims of the day, which are overwhelmingly dictated by Left-wing propagandists.

Even the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) can’t quite put its finger on the right definition of hate crime. It relies on demonstrations of hostility, but the definition is so wide it can include “unfriendliness” and “resentment”. This means, if I feel my mate Dave was a bit off with me at drama club, I can feasibly call the police – provided I'm a member of a protected group.

About | Hate crime


A hate crime is a crime that the victim or any other person perceives to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards any aspect of a person's identity.


Police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland annually monitor five strands of hate crime (listed below). But they can include their own definition of a hate crime with several recently adding sub cultures.

• Disability

• Gender identity

• Race, ethnicity or nationality

• Sexual orientation

• Religion, faith or belief

Given these dire definitions, it is any wonder that Miller ended up being called by the police? This is simply a taste of what’s to come. The law can catch any of us out, it just depends who’s doing the catching – and what their sensibilities are.

Indeed, nowadays any content we share or like can now become a criminal offence. In the future it might even mean algorithms can detect people reading content deemed offensive to protected groups. As speech becomes more constricted, engagement with speech will be the metric of misdeed. Nothing would surprise me, given the bleak direction we are currently going in. Buckle up, everyone.

None of this is to say our society is free from hate, which we all have a role to eradicate. There have been dreadful incidents in the news, and any moral society should constantly fight this – focusing on incitement to violence in particular.

The problem is when legislation removes one risk, but replaces it with another far graver one. Some things are worse than being insulted on the street.

Is it now a crime to like a poem about transgenderism?

Man complains of 'Orwellian police' after tweet investigation

"He said even though I had committed no crime he needed to check my thinking," said Mr Miller.

Here is the original Twitrer thread which was widely shared where Harry Miller first shared his experience. Worth a glance https://twitter.com/harrytheowl/stat...991114241?s=21

After this and numerous other incidents, I have to wonder, is it worth policing hate as an element of crime at all? Murder is murder, and insults are insults no matter who you are. I think colour-blind laws to police harrassement and threats are good enough, otherwise you go too far. You end up policing people’s “thinking”. This follows a discussion on hate crime in this thread you should read if you’re interested.

Should hate be a crime?

[The spartan]

Should hate be a crime?

Of course not, hating someone does not automatically produce a victim. I remember back in an Ethics class I was in we created a fictional character named "Hanz the anti-Semite": he was a made up dude who despised Jewish people and thought the world would be better off if they were all dead, but did nothing directly harmful to anybody. We all pretty much agreed he should not be arrested or otherwise harassed by the State, but many also agreed that we did not feel particularly bad if he were admonished by the public.

But then we had a hard time trying to apply this fictional character to the real world: it turns out that if you truly do hate someone (or group of people), you are much more likely to do nefarious and harmful things to them as you no longer have a moral imperative in your mind not to do so. For example; look at the case of the murder of Emmett Till. The real scary thing about that case was not that someone in Mississippi was willing to murder a kid, that has happened before and will happen again, it was that a group of otherwise respectable people who probably never physically harmed a black person decided that society would be better off if the crazy extremist guys who killed Till did not face justice for murder because society needed to prioritize white citizens over black citizens. That was the deeper harm to society that day, and those group of people did nothing illegal or wrong in their minds.

Now, of course, law isn't just about morals or justice, it is also about pragmatism. I think there are very few laws that can effectively discourage racist ideologies. That said, sentencing for crimes being tied to the motivation for that crime is hardly a new idea or practice. So to come back around to the main point: no, hate alone should not be grounds for arrest; but hate as an aggravating factor to be considered for sentencing seems fairly normal to me, though should definitely have limits.

I don't know if I really addressed anything you were getting at or just rambling to myself. Apologies if it is off topic.

[Aexodus]

That said, sentencing for crimes being tied to the motivation for that crime is hardly a new idea or practice.

Do you have any examples?

I don't know if I really addressed anything you were getting at or just rambling to myself. Apologies if it is off topic.

No not at all, I was actually about to rep you

[The spartan]

Do you have any examples?

The most prominent example I can think of is the categorization of murder in the US. It is all homicide, mechanically killing another person, but WHY someone did so is also of interest to the State.

No not at all, I was actually about to rep you

In ethics, I had a particular interest in Criminal Ethics and the treatment of criminals by their governments. I am very much against the concept of punishing people for the sake of punishment or because others believe the criminal "deserves" it. In general, I am against expanding hate crime laws as I just see that as an expansion of the State's ability to punish people, but I get why they exist at all. Some people commit horrible acts out of severe bigotry towards others, and when that hatred is basically the motivation for the crime (the murderer didn't otherwise know the victim) such as Dylann Roof or Michael Page, I think it is reasonable for the State to consider that when observing the criminal procedures.

[Aexodus]

The most prominent example I can think of is the categorization of murder in the US. It is all homicide, mechanically killing another person, but WHY someone did so is also of interest to the State.

After reading that, it seems to be a distinction of intent rather than motivation.

[The spartan]

I am perhaps speaking too obtusely, but I see a lot of bleed-over between intent and motivation. Basically, why the crime was committed.

[Aexodus]

Yes, but motive bleeds too much into your uncontrollable thoughts and your thinking too much for my liking.

[The spartan]

I can sympathize with that, but we can at least agree that is not completely irrelevant, correct? It is some matter of degree.

[Swiss Army Cheese]

What a peculiar limerick on that spectator article: So peculiar that it has more than 5 lines.

[mongrel]

Haven't we got a glut of these threads in the academy? Which is weird , because such issues should only be a problem for criminals or people who would desire to break the law but are deterred from doing so. Or keyboard warriors who have nothing better to do than troll other people/groups.

Suggest the 3 threads currently on the go be merged

[Pontifex Maximus]

Mens Rea is always the hardest fact to establish at trail. I find it disgusting that in "hate crimes" the mens rea element of "hate" is prescribed before any jury or judge is able to review it. Hate crimes are racist and . We no longer live in 1870 where these designations may have some basis in truth. In 2019, these sentences are just as bad as drug judgments/verdicts.

[mongrel]

I just park this here for the more open-minded.

https://www.humberside.police.uk/new...hate-incidents

[Pontifex Maximus]

Who cares?

[mongrel]

Who cares?

That should be the title of the thread. A keyboard warrior gets caught out making comments which can be read as transphobic*.and gets ticked off (not arrested) for it. This is because the police concluded his behaviour was not criminal in nature. His ordeal is as deterimental to most human beings as a crate of Whiskas and a stash of catnip is to my cats.One begs the question why the thread is titled thus. Perhaps it's designed to attract the unthinking.

*the limerick itself looks like it's written by a trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

[Swiss Army Cheese]

That should be the title of the thread. A keyboard warrior gets caught out making comments which can be read as transphobic*.and gets ticked off (not arrested) for it. This is because the police concluded his behaviour was not criminal in nature. His ordeal is as deterimental to most human beings as a crate of Whiskas and a stash of catnip is to my cats.One begs the question why the thread is titled thus. Perhaps it's designed to attract the unthinking.

*the limerick itself looks like it's written by a trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

Here's the thing. The "keyboard warrior" in question didn't write the comment in question that got him ticked-off (and even if he HAD written the comment and HAD gotten arrested, that would be nothing new and not really news worthy). What happened was that he liked the limerick in question, causing the police to check him out.

Getting up in arms about poms arresting people for writing dirty limericks online is so last year.

[Mayer]

Only in schools (seriously, it's filled with psychopaths who want to murder each other with knives, i feel bad for the next generation).

But in general, freedom of speech is the foundation of a free society. If you ban words because they could offend someone, freedom has been abolished and arbitrary rule established.
Hate is a human emotion like Love. There are some things which the individual fills with disgust and anguish, and he becomes furious.
The very idea that it can be excorcised from the people is absurd, the PC police are crackpot totalitarians.

[Pontifex Maximus]

That should be the title of the thread. A keyboard warrior gets caught out making comments which can be read as transphobic*.and gets ticked off (not arrested) for it. This is because the police concluded his behaviour was not criminal in nature. His ordeal is as deterimental to most human beings as a crate of Whiskas and a stash of catnip is to my cats.One begs the question why the thread is titled thus. Perhaps it's designed to attract the unthinking.

*the limerick itself looks like it's written by a trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

Are you ignoring the fact that "hate crimes" are actually on the books? They carry extended penalties if proven, which is not good, the standard of proof and the evidence required is stupid. It is an over reach by those convinced that the KKK and lynchings are still a problem. They're not at all.

As for "trans-phobic" yeah, whatever. NPC narrative .

[Hazzard]

What's the argument for hate crimes in the cases of something that's illegal? Why does it matter if a murderer kills someone for being black vs them killing someone for having something they wanted? It always struck me as concerning, because it means the government is making statements about what people are thinking.

[Big War Bird]

That should be the title of the thread. A keyboard warrior gets caught out making comments which can be read as transphobic*.and gets ticked off (not arrested) for it. This is because the police concluded his behaviour was not criminal in nature. His ordeal is as deterimental to most human beings as a crate of Whiskas and a stash of catnip is to my cats.One begs the question why the thread is titled thus. Perhaps it's designed to attract the unthinking.

*the limerick itself looks like it's written by a trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

Your police are acting as ideological partisans. In anything that is not a crime the police should have no opinion or policy. Why should the police arrest and seize the property of someone who said a man is not a woman?

[Aexodus]

Police arrested a woman who misgendered someone on Twitter.

Glorious progressive policemen of social justice and equality