Resolved: Hate crime enhancements are unjust in the United States.

Cross-Examination 1. Could you please explain your 2nd contention for me? 2. How does proportionality work on the Affirmative side over the Negative side? 3. Can you just go a little more in depth on how proportionality acheives justice? I have no other questions as I'm sure that I'm going to run out of characters by the end of this speech. I stand in negation of the resolution, Resolved: Hate crime enhancements are unjust in the United States. I agree with all of my opponents definitions and if further clarification is required, I reserve the right. My value for this round will be that of Justice. The definition of justice is giving each his due, from Merriam-Webster Online. I will be upholding my value with my criterion of John Locke's Second Treatise on Government. John Locke promotes that everyone has the right to life, liberty and property. He also contends that if these rights are infringed upon, that they deserve a certain degree of punishment, or, in other words, a punishment that fits the crime. According to Locke, everyone is given their due, if they infringe upon another's rights, through a punishment equal to the violation. Thus, if one person, or in this case, a group of people, are no longer able to pursue life, liberty and property, than the violator has to pay the same consequence, in which the government places an appropriate decision, usually a longer incarceration period. The US Constitution and the Judicial System was based on the principles of Locke's theory and has worked quite well for the past 200 plus years and will continue to work as it has not greatly altered the system. From petty theft to grand theft auto, pre-meditated to crime of passion; different crimes have different levels of punishment, just as violent actions would have different levels of punishment with hate crime enhancements. For the Affirmative to say that hate crime enhancements are unjust, they would also be saying that pre-meditated murder and crime of passion are the same, alongside petty theft and grand theft auto being tried at the same level. 1) Hate crimes have drastic affects on the group being attacked A hate crime affects more that the person(s) of the original incident, they affect everyone belonging to the group that was attacked. Take the Nazis or even the Ku Klux Klan for example. Their attacks were hate crimes on a massive scale. The symbols representing their groups struck fear into the hearts of anyone they were against. Jews fled from the Swastika and mainly blacks fled from the white hooded men. If something isn't done to prevent hate crimes in the US, then once again we will see the rise of a group that will someday strike fear into the hearts of millions, maybe next time, it will be against one of you. 2) Longer sentences will help the rehabilitation process When you were younger would you prefer a slap on the wrist or grounded for a month? I would be willing to bet that you would take the slap on the wrist any day. Since hate crimes have a greater affect on society, as shown in my first contention, they deserve a greater punishment. If you know that you would receive a lighter sentence for a major crime, you would be more willing to do it. If you know that you would receive a harsher punishment, you would be more deterred from doing it. A harsher punishment would allow for people to think before doing it in the first place, but would also remind people if they were to do it again. 3) Hate crime enhancements have worked better than regular punishments Since the introduction of the Hate Crime Enhancement Act in 1990, the number of hate crimes had decreased by an average of 5% until 2001. Since the 9/11 attacks, this nation has experienced an increase in the number of racial separatism among all racial groups. This is the reason for the recent increase among hate crimes and the reason hate crime enhancements have been under fire as of lately. This information is from Michael Shively and Carrie F. Mulford, both Ph.D.'s from the National Institute of Justice. Had hate crime enhancements not been in effect, it has been predicted to have the number of hate crimes rise by over double of what it has previously done I will now move on to the Affirmative argumentation... On the values, we are trying to achieve the same thing, but it all depends on the criterion and contentions that will uphold the values and thus we look to the different sides of the resolution in order to determine who best acheives justice. I will attack the criterion in my opponent's 3rd contention. 1)Hate Crime Enhancements violate the First Amendment If you know anything about the United States government, then you would know that there are always exceptions to the rule. Take laws against slander, for example. If there are lies being brought forth against a person, than there are protections from publishing them. It is okay to prevent a person's freedom of speech if it is going to endanger a person. Also, if you look to the Supreme Court decision of Dennis v. US, the clear and present danger test came about. If a clear and present danger is imminent to the US or it's constituency, then it is allowed to violate the rights that are supposedly guarenteed to us. Thus, if it is a clear and present danger that a hate crime offender is out to get members of a certain population, then it is allowable to restrict the freedom of speech and is tried above a crime of a similar magnitude. 2)Intents can's be proven fairly I'm confused about this point as mentioned before in cross-ex. 3)Proportionality I agree completely that proportionality is key, but we need a further analysis of the Justice System to allow this to be an acceptable argument. When the court system looks at and determines the sentance of a case, they look at the intent of the person (for example, premeditated murder vs. a crime of passion)and the number of the people affected (example, homicide vs. massacre). Therefore, if we are looking at the intent of a hate crime, they are purposely looking to hurt a specific group of people, and looking at group affected, an entire ethnicity, gender, etc. versus a normal crime where one or few people are affected. Therefore if we are looking for proportionality, we must look only to the Negative side in order to acheive justice. My opponent's criterion better upholds the Negative side of the resolution because without proportionality, we would be treating a petty theft the same as grand theft auto, since they are both theft. As mentioned before, we need to look at intent and amount affected in order to decide a proper sentance and that is why petty theft and grand theft auto are on two different levels. In conclusion, the Negative side is the only side that acheives justice. Looking to the Affirmative, we have the same value, and fairly similar criterion, if you look at them closely, but with the topic at hand, everything fits better on the Negative. In my criterion, Locke talks about giving a person, who violates another's right life, liberty and property, the degree of punishment that is merited by the governing body. Thus, if your words before committing a hate crime affect many people, then you should receive a harsher punishment than if you only hurt one person. Looking at this from a far, this is proportional for the crime they committed. Thank you and with that I'm open for cross-examination and points of clarification :-)