Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
Don't be such a tool. I get it, you are a lawyer. Or you have gone to law school. Either way, you are a dweeb.
My point was, how is charging someone with a racist or prejudiced intent to commit a crime categorically different. How is hitting a black person because he is black different than hitting a black person because he is poor? Why is there a difference, and how is it actually enforceable.
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The difference is when an attacker cites a person's race as a direct reason for, or in a disparaging manner that predicates their attack on the victim. The reason for having hate-crime laws is that people still use race as a reason to assault victims and therefore racial minorities face additional risks of being assaulted. You can argue that perhaps this doesn't fit your ideal conception of justice, but then we have a case where idealism meets pragmatism, and pragmatism wins out.