Why is "hate crime" worse than regular crime?

Can someone explain it?

I just don't understand how tougher sentencing for hate crimes can be justified. Whether I murder my neighbor because his barking dog kept me awake night after night or because he's gay, I've taken someone else's life.

Yet there are those who not only believe they can define what constitutes "hate" (isn't that subjective and wholly individual?), but they believe that assigning that label to a crime somehow makes it more severe and worthy of harsher punishment.

A crime is a crime is a crime.....isn't it?

Why do you kill someone? Cause you hate them. Why do you assault them? You hate them. So how come you have to be a black or gay person for it to be a "hate" crime.

Indeed "hate crime" pretty much defies clarification as any sort of sensible proposition; but I suspect that the label very often reflects deliberate manipulation of public attitudes in a rather Orwellian manner.
I should have thought that there was some evidence to suggest that a deep emotional context makes "crimes" less bad, so to speak: the "crime of passion"; "while the balance of his/her mind was disturbed" -ways of avoiding "murder" by appropriate admissions to "manslaughter" and so forth.
And, on the other hand, the import many attach to "in cold blood".
I may be wrong, of course, but I think there is a case for saying that "hate crimes" ( albeit indefinable to any real degree of precision) have probably attracted less severe sentences over the years.

Originally posted by James the Lesser
Why do you kill someone? Cause you hate them. Why do you assault them? You hate them. So how come you have to be a black or gay person for it to be a "hate" crime.

It's wrong, otherwise, all the crimes are all hates crimes.
It's stupid. Everybody can kill someone, even if he don't hate him/her.

This idea ( hate crime ), specialy when a gay, a lesbian, a black, an hispanic is killed by a whites, is dangerous.

Look what's happen now. A black try to rob/kill a white and the white kill him.The result ? THE WHITE IS THE RACIST. But if a white try to rob/kill a black, one more time, the white is the racist, and the black the victim !

A crime is a crime, nothing more. But now, we have many peoples who are earning money with the idea that the majority ( whites ) are all racists and the minorities ( black, hisspanics ) are all victims of the big bad white wolf !

I don't know how is it inin your countryn but in mine, when someone say : " No, I don't have colored friends, I've only whites peopleslike friends ", well minded peoples will say : " HOOOOUUUU, SHE/HE'S A RACIST ".

But if he/she say : " Yep, I've colored friends ", the same well minded peoples will say " Look, he/she's racist, but he/she have some so-called colored friends just to hide his/her racism "

In all the cases, when you are white, you are f%cked !

sounds like a conspiracy to get all of america to be "politically correct". i would agree that all crime is hate crime, with the exeption of stealing food to feed your starving kids.

Good point, is it a crime to steal food for your starving family? If say you were working at Enron, then laid off for we all know why, you have no money, family starving, should you steal food to feed them, or let them starve to death, technically murdering them.

Also, Mr. President, you right. In America, a black guy broke into someones house, killed wife, raped daughter, father/husband shot him, what happnes? White guy in jail, black guy sits on a huge sum of money. Black guy speeds, gets pulled over, cop racist. Black breaks any law, gets caught, everybody is racist. Heck, one where racist didn't work was when cops smart enough to send all black cops in to do a drug bust. Oh man, it was a great story, I'll try to find it later, but anyways, the cops had had problems with gangs and stuff, but everytime they caught some, they were in trouble for being racist. So for a drug bust, sent all black cops. Not racist when blacks arrest blacks.

Is it sad when they have to have all black cops to make an arrest? Also, what about reverse racism? A black guy kills a white guy cause he white, is that a hate crime? No, but cops who arrested him were racist, so he free to go.

Get rid of equal things, for it isn't equal. Like equal oppurtunity for colleges. One is being sued cause two white girls who had high scores weren't allowed in, but black students with low scores were. Only reason girls not allowed, they white. So they suing for reverse discrimination.

But they won't win, they white, only reason they mad that they didn't get in cause they racist, don't want the black man with low scores taking their spots when they had high scores and chances at an education, how racist. Make it equal, stop asking for race.

Amen James the Lesser

James, we have these problems in Europe also.

But I now who's responsible for this situation. The left-wing and the far-left-wing, and the far-right too. With all these whites-nazis, it's easy for the left and the far-left to say that ONLY whites are racists! I know, many will say that I'm a reactionary and a conservative, but it's true.All these problems were set-up by the left, because they had to have a new goal, a new target. They will do all what they can do to keep the power, at any prices.