http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/sticks-and-stones
Sticks and stones may break my bones, goes the adage, but names will never hurt me.
The new adage, tailored for our age, goes:
Sticks and stones may break my bones, and names, insults, derogatory remarks, denigrations, defamations, “hate” crimes, “bias intimidations,” rude or indecent gestures, mockery, satire in textual print or imagery, disrespect, lifestyle harassment, bullying, and other verbal, visual, and non-violent actions, attempts at passive victimization and gross insensitivities that tend or are calculated to hurt, depress, humiliate, or shame me, and otherwise offend my self-esteem and rightful dignity, compromise my privacy, and diminish my standing in the eyes of my fellow creatures – may be grounds for civil and/or criminal suits.
Sticks and stones may be used in the commission of an actual felony, as well as guns, knives, one’s fists, or any other physical object. But an evolving complement of new chargeable felonies, often appended to legitimate ones, is growing, and if not challenged, will reach a “critical mass” in law that will stifle all realms of speech. These new “felonies” are “hate crimes.” A new subset of them is “bias intimidation.”
In “The Peril of ‘Hate Crimes'” I noted:
.[T]he why of a crime is increasingly treated as though it were a weapon, such as a gun, a knife, or a club. In standard criminal cases, however, it has never been the instrument of crime that was on trial, but the defendant and his actions.
Proponents of hate crime have attempted to find a compromise between objectivity in criminal law and the notion that a felon should also be punished for what caused him to commit the crime. But no such compromise is feasible if objective law is to be preserved and justice served. The irrational element – that is, making thought, however irrational or ugly it may be, a crime – has suborned the rational. No compromise between good and evil is lasting or practical. Evil will always come out the victor.
It did not take long for the corrupting notion of hate crimes to degenerate into thought crime. This is what happens when reason is declared irrelevant or is abandoned or diluted by the irrational.
It used to be that a criminal was sentenced for his crime, and if the crime was committed from some form of prejudice, the court’s and jury’s afterthought was usually: And, by the way, your motives are contemptible and despicable.
