Hate, Fox News & Crime (But Not In That Order)

As I sit here putting thought to…. well, not really paper, but “thought to screen” sounds kinda stupid, but we’ll go with that. Anyhow, as I sit here writing today’s post, California is getting pounded by the biggest storm we have seen in a long time. I have already lost a large section of my back fence, and will possibly lose the whole thing. I also have a couple of trees that are worrying me, and if they do go I am hoping it is backwards into the empty lot behind the house, not forward into my new addition. It will probably be a sleepless night. At least I don’t live in the mountains. They are predicting 10 feet of snow for the Mount Shasta area. No, that was not a typo – TEN feet.

But to get my mind off of something I have no control over, I always have my blog. Lately I have been talking about the unintended consequences of liberal policies, policies that are suppose to help minorities, but ultimately hurt them.

Today I’m going to address another well-intentioned liberal policy that I feel, if fully implemented, would cause more harm than good: Hate Crimes. I’ve always kind of been on the fence with regards to hate crimes, whether or not they are a good thing. Actually, that sounds real bad, of course HATE CRIMES are a bad thing (any crime is a bad thing), what I am talking about is hate crime legislation.

Like I said, I’ve been on the fence regarding hate crime legislation, and what finally pushed me against it was a quote from the father of one of the Columbine victims. When Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed several students at Columbine High School they had written of their hatred for blacks and athletes. When asked if he felt that the killers – had they lived – should have been charged with a hate crime, one father of a white student who was NOT an athlete (and therefore was not a “targeted” student) said to the reporter “Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me these boys deserve less punishment for killing my son?” How do you look that father in the eye and tell him his son deserves less justice?

And please, don’t get me wrong, hate crimes are heinous. When those three rednecks in Texas chained James Byrd to their truck and dragged him until he was dead, well all I can say is there is a special place in hell for those types of people. And yes, they deserve to be sentenced to the fullest extent of the law. But if Byrd had been white, or his murderers had been black, should those men have received a lighter sentence. The law already allows for a range in sentencing, and so-called hate crimes can already be dealt with more harshly.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about “hate crime legislation” is that what we are basically talking about here is a “Thought Crime”. Too many shades of Big Brother for me. And who’s to say what is and what isn’t a hate crime? Sure, if I bust into a black church screaming “Kill all of the #%&*($@”, it’s pretty obvious what my motivation was. But what if I bust into a school, and I shoot the first five people I see – and those five people happen to be black (or Asian, or Hispanic, or…..). Is THIS a hate crime? Sure, I killed a group of a single ethnic group, but did I kill them because of their race, or because of their proximity. And regardless of the case, does one group deserve less justice then the other.

Remember Rodney King? Kind of hard not to. Do you know why the cops got off on the first trial? Because they were charged with attempted murder, instead of assault. The prosecution could not prove that the cops were trying to murder King, and they had to rightfully find them not guilty. On an assault charge, they would have rightfully been able to return a guilty verdict, and 58 people who were subsequently murdered in the riots would be alive today. Add into the mix what was in the perp’s mind at the time of a crime, and proving guilt gets much, much harder, which ultimately means those who commit the most heinous of crimes have a better chance of going free.

And supposedly the hate crime legislation is aimed at “helping” minorities. Consider this: Americans commit about 1.7 million interracial crimes each year, of which about 1.2 million involve blacks and whites. Nearly 90 percent of these crimes involve a black perpetrator and a white victim. Granted, not all of these interracial crimes are hate crimes, but isn’t it likely that more blacks will be jailed for hate crimes? Another example of how the liberal agenda punishes minorities – intentionally or not.

I think Larry Elder, the African American talk show host, put it best when he said “If I’m standind at an ATM machine and a Ku Klux Klansman hits me in the back of the head with a brick, the operative word is not “Klansman”, it is “Brick.”

In other news, congratulations to Fox News. According to a new study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University, Fox News has the “Most Balanced Election Coverage on TV.” The study also found that Fox NewsChannel's evening news show provided more balanced coverage than its counterparts on the broadcast networks.

On a related note, congratulation to George Mason University for joining the “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.” Oh, I know you have data and proof to back up your findings, but good luck getting anyone on the left to look at it, let alone take it seriously. Just as it is easier to shout “Racist” than deal with the actual causes of minority disparity, It’s easier to shout “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” than look at facts (cause lets face it, looking at facts takes a long time).

Have a good weekend my friends, I now have an ark I need to go build.

Election Study Finds Media Hit Hillary Hardest Obama, Huckabee Fare Best; FOX Is Most Balanced (not a typo) TV election news has been hardest on Hillary Clinton this fall, while Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee have been the biggest media favorites,