A motorist went a rampage here in my beloved hometown. Some, like Hugh, are speculating (with some reason) that there is a political/religious agenda behind it, but I prefer to take an Occam's approach. There are myriad ways to be nuts, so until we have more evidence let's imagine this person as an individual whose troubles go deeper than any political grievance.
Question: should the punishment be any different should we discover that this qualifies as a "hate" crime? Do the contents of his mind somehow mitigate the outcome?
We should never have put "hate crime" legislation on the books. If you kill someone that is wrong and illegal. It doesn't matter if you did it for money or you did it because you disliked a person's ethnicity or religion. If the latter murderer is given a longer sentence than the former, you are punishing based on a person's thoughts, which is a dangerous road for a democracy to follow.
Posted by: Patrick Ross | 31 August 2006 at 09:47 AM
it makes you wonder where people get the idea that short-term planning will yield immediate rewards.
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