Hate Crimes and the Constitution

Congress just passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. It expands the definition of hate crimes to include gays and related groups, but created fears that speech against such groups could now qualify as a crime.

Factcheck.org disputes the argument that this act will result in the prosecution of those simply speaking.

The problem lies in the notion of "hate crimes" itself. Way back in the good ol' days, the law responded simply to an act that really occurred. If I pulled out a 2x4 and hit somebody over the head with it, I'd be prosecuted for battery regardless of the victim's gender, race, sexual orientation, or whatever. The law also assumed that I might have some negative feelings, perhaps even hate, for the person that I just smacked in the head. Prosecutors and judges did not need to read my mind to figure out my motivation. I hit the guy. Mitigating circumstances or self-defense might come into play, but the state did not need to discern my personal feelings.

Hate crimes laws require the court to get inside the heads of criminals to figure out whether or not they have some prejudice that might have come into play. If one is found, extra harsh sentencing may be applied.

A man may "hate" an individual that he catches in a hotel room with his wife and beat him to a bloody pulp. A person may "hate" those of a different race or sexual orientation and do the same. In either case the law says that the aggressor is in the wrong if he or she is not facing a threat to their own person. Why should one victim of violent crime be granted a certain status and entitlement to a higher level of legal deterrence?

Sociologists might be able to come up with arguments that demonstrate a valid case for hate crimes. However, the Constitution says otherwise. All United States citizens are entitled to "equal protection under the laws," nothing more, nothing less. Applying harsher penalties dependent upon who the victim is could theoretically mean that a person would feel more deterred from beating up an individual enjoying a protected status more than just anyone else on the street. That does not meet 14th Amendment standards.

No one should be beaten or killed because of their lifestyle or the way God made them (unless the lifestyle or the way God made them leads them to harm others) but hate crimes statutes simply are not constitutional.

Facebook eliminating those with conservative ideology?

Many conservatives around the country have found the social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter are useful tools to network with other conservatives. After all these sites are specifically designed to assist people in networking, but it appears that at least one may not wish conservatives to be able to network with each other. Stories of conservatives being deleted from Facebook have been floating around the internet for months, but until it happened to a few friends on Facebook and then myself I though they were only rumors.

For me problems began shortly after appearing on the Fox News Channel, which is owned by News Corp which also owns Myspace, Facebook’s larger rival in the social networking internet realm. An influx of new friend requests and new friend suggestions began to roll in from people of like minded conservative ideology. Shortly after accepting the new friend requests and suggestions that Facebook was suggesting I began to get warnings about possible abusive behavior. After reading the “Terms of Use” I could not find anywhere where I was being abusive for responding to friend request and suggestions, so I requested clarification by contacting Facebook.

Inquiries to Facebook only resulted in automated responses, “The Facebook Team has received your inquiry. We should get back to you soon.” Nothing beyond this response was ever received. My experience is not unique among conservatives across the nation. One Conservative Facebooker, of Ames, IA, kept having her accounts deleted, but could get no where when trying to find out why, “I never got my original account back. I got my 2nd account back after a month after 30 emails someone finally bit and told me I was banned. I asked for specifics, [they] couldn't answer me.” Many conservatives are reporting that Facebook is unresponsive to request for information as to why their accounts are being deleted.

The deletions do not just affect the individual Facebook account of the user; sometimes they have far reaching effects. A Facebook event listing for a dinner with RNC Chairman Michael Steele, himself a Facebook member, was deleted along with the conservative user that posted the event. For many this was their only point of contact for the event which included times and directions. Friends and political connections also are also lost when Facebook is the only point of contact. The Iowa Conservative said, “I am very involved in politics. This is NUTS. I am losing friends like crazy to accounts being disabled.”

It has been reported in the media that Facebook has had problems with people registering under fake names and they are disabling those account, but so far most of the conservatives having their accounts disabled have had fairly normal names. The Iowa Conservative believes “We need a conservative Facebook NOW!”

The Republican Party Will Come Full Circle in the Kanawha Valley This Week

On Friday, May 22nd the chairman of the Republican Party returns to one of the origin points of its noblest crusade. This year the Grand Old Party elected a black for the first time as leader. A successful businessman from Maryland defeated after several votes a man who himself had attended segregated schools in South Carolina. In choosing Michael Steele as chair, Republicans did not embrace a new direction, but reaffirmed their roots as the party of freedom and liberty for all. Chairman Steele's visit to the Kanawha Valley this week has very symbolic overtones.

Few people remember today that the region surrounding Charleston can lay claim to being a cradle of the Civil Rights Movement. Before the Civil War, Booker T. Washington of Malden (about fifteen miles east of Charleston) lived as a slave. By 1900 he grew into the preeminent spokesman for the advancement of blacks in America.

Washington advocated a stance for the black community controversial in his time and rejected today. He witnessed the horror inflicted upon politically active blacks in the South. Washington relentlessly advocated the education of blacks in a region hostile to them advancing beyond menial labor. Ku Klux Klan terror raids bullied and often killed blacks who pushed into the political world in the 1870s and 80s. As a result, he spoke in Atlanta about separate development. Washington told the black community to embrace education and develop themselves economically in the present. When it attained a certain financial status, it could then use its clout to peacefully obtain civil and political rights. W. E. B. DuBois derided this in terms that we would today call "appeasement" but it is clear that the social and political culture of the South was very violently antagonistic to DuBois' immediate goals. Washington offered a path that families and individuals could follow in the nineteenth century without fearing for their lives.

Regardless of how modern ears regard Washington's message, his staunch advocacy of education and establishment of the Tuskeegee Institute helped to advance his cause considerably. Interestingly enough, Washington himself had engaged in political activism as a young man.

In the 1870s, while working in Kanawha Valley salt furnaces and coal mines, Washington opened his activist career as a political orator. He stumped the region speaking on behalf of the Republican Party and its candidates. This took courage considering that Kanawha County had strong Confederate sentiment during the Civil War. It would only take one ex Rebel with a grudge to have changed history. Luckily Washington remained safe as he preached support for the GOP. From this springboard he traveled to the Hampton Institute in Virginia to formally receive an education.

The ideas Washington spoke about to the Republican faithful in the Kanawha Valley in his youth will likely be similar to Steele's. First and foremost the Republican Party has always embraced expansive freedom for everyone. Washington found limits as a young man in that certain jobs were just not open for him. The GOP today seeks to expand access to opportunity while enhancing the incentives to succeed. Democrats believe that all should end up equal in the end regardless of effort or risk. Ensuring this "equality of outcome" means that freedoms and opportunities for the energetic and industrious will be diminished while handouts for others increase.

Michael Steele's visit to the Kanawha Valley this week is indeed hsitoric and symbolic. He has the opportunity here to reaffirm the traditional principles of freedom while charting a new course of action. Success is essential.

No Logic in States Numbers on Corridor H Funding

Recently an article appeared in the Charleston Daily mail entitled, “Official targets slow work on Corridor H” and state officials gave reasons for the continued delay of the highway. Most of the reasons given by the state make little or no sense.

The state claims they couldn’t pay the back the bonds. According to the article, “Even if the Legislature raised the cap, Walker said the state still couldn't pay back the debt on such a project.” This statement is totally illogical, as the bond method builds the highway at a lower cost. Consider that the current estimate for completing constructions is 1.5 billion dollars over the next 26 years. Of those 1.5 billion dollars, the state is responsible for 20% matching funds as outlined by the Appalachian Region Commission and that cost would be $300 million dollars.

Now if the state issues bonds to complete the final 50 miles of Corridor H that have yet to receive funding, at 22 million dollars per mile , then total construction cost would be approximately 1.1 billion dollars. The states portion of that would be $220 million saving the West Virginia taxpayers 80 million dollars and saving the US taxpayers 400 million dollars.

Walker went on to say, “"It would completely bleed the state road fund. If we were able to do all of that, very important programs, like paving and bridge repairs, would have to be sacrificed." My question to Mr. Walker would be; why would freeing up an extra 80 million dollars from Corridor H, require the state to cut other projects? Those 80 million dollars in savings from Corridor H could be used to increase funding of very important programs, like paving and bridge repairs. The reality is the exact opposite of what Mr. Walker says; the state will have to cut $80 million worth of future projects, because they are not changing the funding method.

Now it is estimated that Corridor H over its length will create an additional 8,000 jobs in the state. If we bond the highway and complete it in 2015, then using the median income in the state, 32,589 dollars , those 8,000 jobs will create an additional 260 million dollars of annual income in the state. The state taxes as on that median income will be around 15.6 million dollars in annual revenue for the state. From an early completion date of 2015 to 2035 the current funding completion date, the total taxes collected from those new jobs, adjusted for inflation , will be 439 million dollars. The estimated annual Federal Tax from the new jobs will be 39 million dollars annually or 1.1 billion over 20 years adjusted for inflation.

So our choices are continue with the current funding method of Corridor H, which will complete it around 2035 and cost the taxpayers of the nation and state 1.5 billion dollars with small increase in employment during the construction phase, or build it over the next 6 years at a cost of 1.1 billion generating around 1.5 billion in new state and Federal tax revenue between 2015 and 2035 in the process as those new jobs are created in the near term. I prefer the method where Corridor H is completed early and pays for itself with taxes generated from the new jobs it will create. We have to start being smart about how we build highways and other large projects in the state. We must be fiscally responsible.

Blast from the Past: Three Ring Government

The Inappropriate Sense of Humor of Barack Obama

So Barack Obama, as we saw last week, considers dredging up traumatic memories of 9/11 and scaring New Yorkers half to death to be fodder for a joke. The CNN commentator did not even stray from neutrality as she gleefully introduced the poor attempt at humor. He joked about his children taking Air Force One for a joyride.

The real story here is not the fact that Obama made a stupid and crass joke at the Correspondent's Dinner. No one responded or reacted to this.

The amazing thing is the contrast between Obama's humor and his predecessor. President Bush generally, in such situations, had the self-confidence to ridicule himself. The best example was when he brought out the impersonator and spoke alongside him. President Bush understood that he was funny, but also did not push it past the point where he would injure his dignity as president. Obama is not yet aware that his presidential persona is a huge target for ridicule.

There's nothing wrong with a president lightening up and joking around in the right forum. They still need to be respectful when considering joking about the worst attack on this nation within most of our lifetimes.

Interestingly, Obama was caught laughing at a statement about Rush Limbaugh being killed. Now in an unguarded moment, something similar could happen to any of us. However, compare the lack of comment to the heaps of abuse thrown at CBS golf analyst David Faherty. Faherty toured the Middle East and recounted his assessment of US troops' opinions of liberal politicians. "Despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death." In his apology, he explained that he was simply trying to explain how US soldiers feel about their current commander-in-chief. CBS and the PGA Tour blasted his statements, which, like the Rush Limbaugh murder joke, were inappropriate.

Will anyone condemn or distance themselves from Obama and his friend yukking it up over their fantasized death of Limbaugh? Probably not.