(July 29, 2015 at 12:14 am)Redbeard The Pink Wrote:Well, that's what I wrote. You can do a routine murder and just be charged with a routine murder charge. But if you verbalize a level of hatred toward the victim they charge you with murder plus a hate crime, although the verbalization had nothing to do with the victim's death.(July 28, 2015 at 11:49 pm)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote: I have to disagree with you about thought crimes not being real things. They certainly are in America. That's why we have a whole book of things called "hate crimes" and "conspiracies". Heck, every conceivable act known to man has been is, or will be illegal somewhere in America. It's bad enough to do the actual deed but if they say you had some unapproved thoughts while committing the deeds they throw an additional punishment at you.
Conspiracy isn't exactly a thought crime, as it requires action. Are you maybe conflating it with pre-meditation? To conspire is to get together with others and plan something, is it not? For a group to plan, they have to communicate somehow, maybe even meet...the only way it would be thought crime is if telepathy were used as a means of communication.
Hate crime isn't exactly a thought crime either; while there is an element of intent involved, there generally has to be another crime involved. Hatred itself is not a crime, legally speaking.
Likewise if you get together with someone else and devise a plan for commiting an action they will charge you with conspiracy even though you never acted on the action.
So hate crimes and conspiracy charges are just BS charges intended to add extra punishment when they had no actual harmful effect on the victim, if there was one. It's just an application of what Jesus said in Matthew 5:21-22 and Matthew 5:28.
