by John Walters
Josh May Be Far-Right, But In This Case He’s Right
If you want to be canceled on Twitter today, defend Josh Hawley, the lone Senator who voted against an “anti-Asian hate bill.” The bill passed 94-1 and while I disagree with Sen. Hawley on just about everything else I’ve heard him utter or do, I’m with him here.
This tweet from John Ziegler perfectly makes the case I would have:
Josh Hawley may have been against this bill because he’s a constitutional scholar. Or he may have been against it because maybe he’s racist. In this instance, though, that doesn’t matter. Because the bill is wrong.
A crime is a crime is a crime. The color or religion or sexual orientation of the person committing the crime does not matter, nor does it matter what the color or religion or sexual orientation of the victim is. The crime itself stands on its own merit, or lack thereof, as a misdemeanor or a felony. Attaching an extra oomph to a crime simply because of the color or race of the victim does nothing to further the cause of e pluribus unum.
It’s been a sorry week for the Woke Crowd. A teenager lunges at another teenager with a knife and the cop who prevented what could have been a senseless murder is the one who gets crucified via public opinion. And now this.
If people have already forgotten, this is how Donald Trump got elected five years ago. Common sense flew out the window. It’s awful that a gunmam targets Asian or Sikh people and murders them. We have a crime on the books for that: murder. As Mr. Ziegler says, anything more than that is simply virtue-signaling. And all it does is make the existing laws look weaker. It wasn’t the inefficacy of the laws that got those people murdered. It is our collective failure as a people to treat each other as equals. How does a law that will only further delineate people help to bridge that divide?
The Ziegler tweet implies a hate crime is based solely on the race of the victim. But it’s not. It’s based on the bias of the perpetrator. The FBI has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” One could argue there’s a danger in trying to interpret motive, but we already do that in our justice system, no?
Also, I don’t understand “all crimes are hate crimes.” When I steal your car, it’s not because I hate you.
Whoa – a quick look at Ziegler’s Twittler – an anti-mask anti-vaxxer? I’ll take a pass on that source of wisdom.
Another way to look at it is he wants publicity.
He votes no, his name is out there. The people who hate him don’t give a crap because they hate him. His supporters don’t care. Now he gets a chance to answer a question about this and then go off on a rant about other issues.
This the same thing as last week when Boebert and MTG voted against the leukemia bill.
Or maybe he’s just correct.
If I kill you, it’s murder.
If I kill you because you’re Asian, it’s… murder.
On a deeper level, being racist is heinous. But it’s not illegal. Nor should it be. The freedom to think awful thoughts and even to express them is granted in the Constitution.
Hawley’s motives here may ne different than mine. But he’s still correct.
Actually, no – if you kill me, it could be murder 1, murder 2, murder 3, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, or vehicular manslaughter. The distinctions? Malice, malice aforethought, intention, special circumstances. If malice, why not hate?
I just read the bill – it doesn’t establish hate crimes (already on the books) – it just calls for better tracking of data on hate crimes. And acknowledges the increased attacks on Asians during Covid. So is that virtue signaling or symbolic action? We perform symbolic political actions all the time and no one objects.
In a country where we passed a law declaring April National Fresh Celery Month, a law pointing out increased attacks on Asians is bad and should be tracked doesn’t seem like a big deal. Especially in a country where over 4,000 people were lynched not very long ago.
We’ll have to leave it there and disagree.
I don’t observe National Fresh Celery Month.