Hate Crime Enhancement

Thank you for answering my questions. This will be a very intersesting debate. The reason I asked you those set of questions was to get clarification on a few points you made. I've broken the arguments into numbers to help with confusion in later rounds. 1) The difference between a hate crime and a "normal" crime. 2) Hate Crimes are more violent 3) Hate Crimes target more people Lets use 2 examples of crimes, and then you point out which of the 2 is an unwarranted infringement upon the criminal's rights. Lets say the sentance for assault is 1.5 years. Lets say an enhancement is an extra year Example 1- Joe walks down the street and punches Bob in the face due to an argument that the two had previously had. Now Joe will recieve a 1.5 year sentance. Example 2- Joe walks down the street and punches Bob in the face while calling him the N word due to an argument that the two had previously had. Now, in this example, Joe would normally recieve 1.5 years but due to his N word, Joe will recieve 2.5 years. In these two examples, should we be looking at the motivation for the crime, or the fact that Joe punches Bob in the face. Don't get me wrong, Joe should DEFINATELY recieve a sentance, however he shouldn't recieve double jeopardy! When I said "normal crime" I'm speaking about the same exact crime but without the hate crime aspect (the Joe vs Bob case for example). Even if you take the most horrific hate crimes. If someone is tied up and burned at the hands of a prejudice person, it isn't the fact that he's prejudice taht should get him a stiffer sentance, it should be the fact that he burned someone to death that we should be looking at. Hate crime enhancements are an attempt to punish someone for not viewing things the way the rest of society does. It is true that they are allowed to have the view until they act dangerously upon it, but we shouldn't punish the fact that they have the view, but the fact that they act dangerously. Our first amendment AT ITS CORE allows people to believe in horrible things, NO MATTER HOW crazy and psycho they appear to be to someone else. It allows for us to believe in whatever it is we'd like to believe in. You can't say these people that are given these enhancements aren't being treated unconstitutional, because they are getting stiffer sentences based off of their hatred, beliefs, and thoughts. If you say that it isn't the fact that they believe in something different that they're being punished for, then why is there an enhancement, shouldn't they get the normal sentance then? ARGUMENT 1) The reason I had you define crime was to point out the justifications of hate crime enhancements. The definistion of crime was, "an action which constitutes a serious offence against an individual or the state and is punishable by law." The definition of hate crime was, "Hate crimes (also known as bias motivated crimes) occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political." Now, what really seperates the two? Aren't all crimes out of hate towards the defender? Looking at the justification of what a hate crime is, you can see that the term is extremely ambiguous. You can say EVERY crime is a hate crime (and then point out that the offender did it because he was mad the other person was black white, fat, disabled, gay, or even a girl or a boy). The person should not be given an extra sentence based on the motivation of their crime, they should be given a sentance based on the result of a crime. ARGUMENT 2) Are you sure you can prove that they are more serious? Aren't all serious crimes a result of hatred or malicious activity? For instance, can you actually prove that because someone yells a racial slur while they commit a crime, that it is worse than someone who doesn't yell one but commits the same exact crime? (back to the Joe Vs Bob) If so how can you? ARGUMENT 3) Lets look at this from a different view from a second. You're saying that people commit hate crimes are a direct threat to everyone of that race/whatever it is they target them for. Before I make my stance on this present, let me draw a little picture. Lets say the population of the world is 100. 25 being green people, 25 being pink people, 25 being blue people, and 25 being silver people. Now, lets say that there is a hate motivated criminal who hates all green people. And there is a criminal who doesn't have a particular race he hates, but just committs crimes. How can you possibly say that the hate motivated criminal hates more? His total is 25 (only the group he hates) but the non-bias criminal is a threat to all 100 seeing as how he doesn't care who he commits the crime against. If anything, the people who committ random crimes to random people are more dangerous because they don't care who it is they're doing it to. So, that argument flows more toward my side if any. Hate crime enhancements are a direct violation to the 1st ammendment, and the law against double jeopardy. Thank you and I await your response.