Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
That is absurd.
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This post is absurd. Intent absolutely matters, morally, which is the entire point between absolute liability offenses and other crimes - though it goes far beyond that. A person's motivations for their actions contains a bunch of information about how they're likely to act in the future. Ultimately, all criminal law is is a system to punish and discourage behavior that a particular society has deemed immoral. If we've decided that being racist is bad, and particular behavior classified as criminal is bad, then it isn't at all beyond reason to conclude that the combination of both of them would be worse.