resolved: hate crime enhancements are unjust in the united states.

To begin, my opponent failed to give a value and a criteria, which are necessary to show what my opponent is trying to prove and how he/she intends to prove it if at all. Therefore, since he/she has not provided one, his/her entire case is rendered meaningless. "all crime infringe upon the rights of others." Thus, are you saying we should punish them the same? If this were actually TRUE, then why do we punish a robbery with 20 years in jail, and punish murders with the life sentence? Obviously, different crimes deserve different punishments. And as so far, hate crime enchancements DO pose more of a threat than a parallel (normal) crime. i assume that my opponent meant "hate crime" and not "hate crime enhancements". First of all, i did not state that we should punish all crime the same. I simply stated that all crime infringes upon the rights of others in some way. Simply because a victim is a member of a protected class does not mean he or she has had more of his/her rights violated than a victim of a parallel crime. Secondly, we punish a robbery and a murder differently because of the result and damage caused by the crime. Two murders which were committed through the same means merit the same punishment, regardless of whether the victim was targetted because he or she was a homosexual, for instance, or not. both victims in this case had their right to live safely and without fear violated. All persons must be treated equal under the law and hate crime enhancements violate this principle in that they take victims of hate crimes into more consideration simply due to the fact that they are members of protected classes. As said by Gregory R. Nearpass of Albany Law School, "Try explaining to a mother whose child was murdered that the crime does not rise to the level of a hate crime, and that the crime is not highly valued, solely because the crie was not committed with the requisite element ofspecific hate toward a protected group" ""there is nothing that can be said about the damaging effects of bias crimes on social order that cannot be said about all crime." When a hate crime is carried out, EVERYONE in that minority group is affected, as the crime was directed towards the group in general, as opposed to a normal crime, and only the individual is affected." in any crime, people are affected. I believe that if someone was murdered in your neighborhood and a serial killer was on the loose, you would feel afraid for your wellbeing. "The second argument states that a hate crime and a normal crime should be punished the same because the recieving end (the victim) does not particularly feel and bit more emotionally disturbed. Let's keep in mind how false this is. A person being attacked SOLELY based on their skin color or their ethnicity obviously feels a WHOLE lot more unjustified than one who is being attacked because they offended someone. In other words, someone whole is attacked due to his/her identity feels a lot more unjustified than a parallel crime." It is true that no one deserves to be a victim because of his or her race, sexual orientation, etc. The fact that someone was singled out when others, equally situated, were not is unjust and such crimes violate our standard of eqaulity. however, as quoted by Heidi M. Hurd and Michael S. Moor, professors of the University of Illinois, "this is true of all crime victims. No one deserves to be singled out for a violent crime. when a victim is so singled out, (he or) she always can say that (he or) she is in no morally relevant sense different than others not so targeted, and can rightly conclude that her right to equality was violated as well as her substantitive right to bodily integrity. Hate/bias crime victims thus can tender no claim to a violation of equality that cannot be equally claimed by every other crime victim." Secondly, my opponent fails to provide any evidence to support this, and even if he or she were to, there would still be no way to determine who feels more pain. "A person's rights are revoked when they violate someone else's rights. So, as so far, the revoking of someone's rights IS justified as the government has the right to violate someone's rights if that person has violated another person's rights. Punishing someone's motive is, in no way, wrong, furthermore. Evidently, we punish someone who fails to murders someone, although no action was actually taken. In that case, we ARE punishing them solely on motive." Intent is punished in our criminal justice system. However, Hate crime enhancements are designed to punish beliefs, which is unconstitutional and undemocratic. Consider this: -my criteria is proportional punishment, which means punishments which are proportional to the severity of the crime. -if two crimes are equal in severity, they merit the same punishment. -thoughts, beliefs, and speech are protected under the first amendment. -"I want to kill someone" is a thought. -"I want to kill a person who is a woman because i hate women" is also a thought. -both are protected under the 1st amendment. -if these thoughts, or intentions, are carried out, a person will be killed in both cases. -therefore, since the end result was the same, the two crimes should be punished the same way. however, hate crime enhancements prevent that. because my opponent did not offer definitions, i will assume he or she agrees with mine and finds mine to be fair for this round. let's look at the definition for hate crime: "a criminial offense committed against a person or property MOTIVATED, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, BY THE OFFENDER'S BIAS against a race, religion, etc." because the only difference between a hate crime and a parallel crime is the biased motive, and biased motives are thoughts which are protected, they do not merit harsher punishments. Why should having racist or sexist thoughts cause someone to deserve a worse punishment than if someone just happened to hate society in general? "As the sole purpose of the negative is the NEGATE the proposition, I will only negate the arguments on the affirmative." in response to this, i would like to point out that i am arguing in LD format, in which both the negative and the affirmative have a burden of proof.