Re: What is the point of hate laws?

On Apr 17, 9:56 am, Ed <solon...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> I'm not a lawyer but I'm under the impression that hate laws were
> enacted in order to move the jurisdiction of certain crimes from local
> law enforcement to Federal enforcement.  This was done because some
> believed that hate crimes sometimes echoed local prejudices and that
> perpetrators were more likely to escape appropriate punishment when
> enforcement was done at the local level.

I believe this is a correct *****sment. Any measures that transfer
more power to the centralized government is something that nearly all
politicians will work toward.  Plus "thought crimes" have the
advantage of being vague enough (who can prove what another person's
thoughts are?) that this grants much more power to authorities to make
bogus charges and harass political oponents. Yeah, that would be good!