The Haters of Hate
[Reprinted from Issues & Views Winter 1998]
Statist (stá tist), n.
One who believes in the principle or policy of concentrating extensive
economic, political and related controls in the state at the cost of individual
liberty.
One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian society is the imprisonment of
individuals for their ideas. Did you know that, in America, there are
individuals serving prison time for their beliefs, for the ideas they hold?
Don't believe it? Read on.
In a free and just society, if you commit a crime, such as assault, you are
punished for that act, not for the idea which motivated the act. If an
ignorant racist assaults someone, he is treated no differently than a better
person who commits the same crime. The punishment is the same for both
individuals. Assault is assault and the motive does not alter the nature of the
act. Motive explains the act, it does not excuse, mitigate or make it worse.
One of the most ominous, dangerous moves by statists has been the enactment
of legislation regarding so-called hate crime. With hate crime, you are
punished not only for the act of assault but also for the idea which led
to the assault.
Here's how hate crime works. If you commit assault, let's say the normal
penalty is five years in prison. Under hate-crime laws, if you commit the
assault because of racist ideas, or other bad ideas, then your penalty is
"enhanced" with extra years in prison--and those extra years in
prison are not for the act of assault but for the ideas which prompted
the assault.
Forget racism's irrational and odious nature, focus only on the precedent
established by hate-crime legislation: you are to be punished, imprisoned, for
holding a certain idea. It makes no difference that, so far, those receiving
extra prison time are actual criminals. The fact remains these individuals, as
reprehensible as they are, are serving prison time for their ideas.
It is no accident that actual criminals have been chosen as the initial
target of hate crime. By selecting criminals who commit heinous acts, statists
have successfully hidden their agenda. It has enabled statists to smuggle into
their legislation hate crime's dangerous precedent, one which will gradually
spread to areas other than real crime. It will be driven by an irresistible
logic: if it is right for the state to criminalize one idea, it is right to
criminalize any idea.
Consider the other precedent established by hate crime: that it is a crime
to hate. In a free society, hatred is not a crime. Those consumed by irrational
hatred are free to act upon that hatred. There is only one prohibition: do not
initiate force against another.
Hatred is an intense dislike of something. Hatred, like love, may be
rational or irrational. If you love freedom, you hate enslavement. The hatred
of those things which may destroy your values is perfectly rational. Such
hatred is good.
Since the defining characteristic of hate is the intensity of your dislike
of something, the campaign by the haters of hate is really an attempt to
destroy your capacity for a passionate belief in anything, rendering you
impotent to oppose them. Create a nation of sheep, individuals incapable of
loving or hating anything, a nation of docile, pliable people and you have the
kind easily manipulated by statists.
With the precedent of jail time for bad ideas and hate as a crime, statists
will move with a vengeance against their enemies--those who love their freedom.
The use of "hate" will be selective. It may be a few years before
journalists, writers--and you--are hauled off to jail for the crime of
"hate," but it is coming as long as the precedents of hate crime are
accepted and codified in law.
-- Fulton Huxtable is a freelance writer and president of Huxtable
Associates in St. Charles, Missouri. Visit his website at:
http://www.fatalblindness.com
Copyright 1998 Issues & Views
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