Hate Crime Legislation

Arbitrary PRO cites the Swedish-Spanish model. Although the Swedish model uses “other circumstances” as bases for what constitutes a hate, it should be noted that the Spanish model only protects special classes. Also note that the Swedish model lists many other “protected classes” before it lists “other circumstances”. Therefore, it is much more likely that those listed “victim's race, color, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion” will receive special treatment under this model. Next PRO tries to demonstrate an example of an assault that is not hate-crime motivated. According to his model it “takes every group into account”. He cites an example of a crime that he believes isn’t class motivated, a man beating up a wife that cheated on him, but can still be considered a class under his mode. For all we know, there could be a whole group of women that have cheated on him. This qualifies as a group. PRO states that the man does not hate all women who cheat, just this particular woman that cheated. However this is just breaking a group into a subgroup. If one hit a person another “not because he is black, but because he is black AND gay” the Swedish-Spanish model would still committing that a hate crime. But let’s say there she was the only person that cheated on the man. Does this female still qualify as a group? Technically a group is more than one person, but is that fair? If there is only one person in the world with green skin, should a person receive a greater punishment for hitting a black person but not a green person? PRO says that “past actions” do not qualify as a hate crime, yet his own model describes attacks on “sexual orientation, religion, and beliefs” as hate-crimes which are ALL actions. Not only is the legislation for hate crimes arbitrary, but PRO’s own model is contradictory. 2) Litigation Costs I am not debating how to make the system more affordable. My contention is that litigation costs are expensive, so these costs need to be factored into analysis of whether to implement a law or not. If a law has little to no benefit, it is best not to pass it since the cost of litigation will occur at the expensive of alternative ways to spend money. 3) False Convection This again relates to my second point, that if a law has very little or no benefit, it should be implemented due to the harm done through false convections. Rape and murder are serious crimes, so the benefit of enforcement outweighs the cost of possible false convections. Physical assault is already a crime, and the act of assault should be punished. Hate speech is a form of freedom of expression. Crimes like rape, assault, and murder are also objective and can be proven through evidence, hate crimes are very subjective and are more likely to yield a false convection. For example, If I punch a black person and state “You stupid n***ger”, I might just be really upset at the man, and not really a racist. I explained this in Round 2. 4) No proof that it works PRO’s own source shows that “, the share of islamophobic hate crimes increased with 40 percent”. That does not seem to show effectiveness. Also, a single data point stating that hate crimes have decreased in 2010 is not even close to proof. In order for PRO to demonstrate that hate crime are effective, he would have had to find a peer review journal showing a decreased rate of assault occurring on “protected classes” after hate crime legislation was passed. He has not done this, so he has failed his burden of proof. Rebuttals: 1) Multicultrualism PRO asserts that he demonstrated the positive effects of multiculturalism. I was unable to find where PRO proved that multiculturalism is indeed virtuous, just some non-sequitur statements. If my audience believes he logically demonstrated the benefits of multiculturalism and I did not refute them in previous rounds, then I will give him the benefit of the doubt. However, I especially did not find where forced multiculturalism is a good idea. Finally, as my last argument stated, I definitely did not find where it is proven that hate crime legislation leads to multiculturalism. PRO states that people eventually learn to compromise and live together, but this is just false. Sure, sometimes it works, but not always. Israeli and Palestinians have hated each other for over 50 years now. There are people that I know who I will never like. PRO states that I asserted that I just asserted that "his justification for hate-crime legislation is to control people’s speech to create multiculturalism. ". However, by definition hate-crime legislation, especially If we consider hate speech, controls people’s speech and PRO even states in his analysis “be more likely to think twice about how they phrase messages that they graffiti”, I do not see how my statement above can be considered just a “bare assertion”. 2) Social benefits I have responded in the first round about “hate crime prevents the crime before it happens. ”. Assault is already a criminal offense, so the government is already doing stuff to prevent it. The idea that complex political and social conflicts such as the Rwanda Genocide would not have occurred “If only hate crime legislation was passed” is absurd. The entire argument is a slippery slope fallacy. PRO states that Rwanda is an example of the failure of “natural order”. However, natural order is by definition “It encompasses the natural relations of beings to one another, in the absence of law, which natural law attempts to reinforce. ” [1] It is government that creates propaganda to demonize other races and does the killing. My analysis of “in-group” and “out-group” theory was to demonstrate that even If you create “hate-crime legislation” people will always find other groups to dislike. It's natural psychology that cannot be avoided. Even if hate-crime legislation is effective at protecting certain groups, it merely shifts the focus to other groups. That’s why one should specifically punish assault, not creating hate crime legislation that picks which groups it’s alright to hit and which ones aren’t. 3) Damages to freedom of speech PRO states that through stating that defamation should be banned, I am going against the judgment of the US Supreme Court. First off, he links to a Supreme Court case whether hate crime legislation is constitution, but not hate speech. Hate speech is allowed in the United States and is protected under the Constitution [2]. PROs own source on defamation shows that is very difficult to be prosecuted for it and that public figures are mainly except from these laws. Protected groups are basically public figures since they are well known. Second, the US Supreme Court only decides whether a law is constitutional, not whether the act itself is good. There’s a difference. Third, PRO is committing a massive appeal to authority fallacy. The US government is not the authorizer of what is and is not moral. Extend my analysis on defamation laws. PRO agrees that people have the right to state false statements. Yet, they do not have the right to state possibly true statements about others. In other words, this makes it very difficult to reveal corruption of public figures, and it is harmful to democracy if politicians cannot be exposed. I already gave my analysis that defamation is not wrong in round 2. Conclusion: Hate-crime legislation is an ineffective tool. Throughout this debate, PRO has not proven its effectiveness. PRO’s own model of hate-crime legislation is contradictory. The damage of litigation costs and false convictions damages any benefit PRO made. Hate-crime legislation is damaging to liberty and to democracy. It is a form of behavior and speech control that states that it is alright to harm some groups but not others. Assault is already an illegal offense. If violence is a problem, crack down on assault, not hate crime. . http://tinyurl.com...[1] . http://tinyurl.com...[2]