Dems vote NO to protect vets, yes to protect pedophiles.
Anon
Posts: 11,175
http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/04 ... ction.html
During a House Judiciary Committee meeting, Congressman Steve King (R-IA) offered up an amendment to the hate crimes bill to exclude pedophiles from being a protected category under the hate crimes legislation.
Every single Democrat voted it down.
In the same meeting, Congressman Tom Rooney (R-FL) offered an amendment to include veterans as a class protected under the hate crimes bill. Not only did the Democrats vote it down, but Cogresswoman Debbie Waasserman Schultz attacked the Republicans for even thinking veterans might need protection under hate crimes legislation. After all, who but Democrats in Congress hate veterans?
During a House Judiciary Committee meeting, Congressman Steve King (R-IA) offered up an amendment to the hate crimes bill to exclude pedophiles from being a protected category under the hate crimes legislation.
Every single Democrat voted it down.
In the same meeting, Congressman Tom Rooney (R-FL) offered an amendment to include veterans as a class protected under the hate crimes bill. Not only did the Democrats vote it down, but Cogresswoman Debbie Waasserman Schultz attacked the Republicans for even thinking veterans might need protection under hate crimes legislation. After all, who but Democrats in Congress hate veterans?
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Why should veterans be included as a protected class under a hate crimes bill? No one hates veterans. I'm very left liberal, but my own dad was a veteran of several conflicts. If someone had killed him, it wouldn't have been because they hated veterans, but because they didn't like organic farmers...or people with six dogs...or a couple of roosters....or something like that. A bill to protect veterans against hate crimes is like a bill to protect veterans against 6-ft.-tall radioactive spiders. It would make more sense to make organic farmers a protected class of people. If you've ever met a farmer with roosters, you'll know why. How many documented hate crimes are there against veterans? Like zero???? Do you hate veterans? If so, I'd again like to hear your reasoning why.
Bills are NEVER as simplistic as a single sound line like "Protect vets?"
Most likely, the bill claiming to protect vets was going to actually limit their access to health care or legal help.
Like the "Defense of Marriage Act" which was really the "Let's punish the fags" bill with a nice name.
Don't buy the crap spouted about how the evil liberals make the little children cry and protect pedos. It's just as absurd as it sounds.
Pedophiles are included in the original bill, and since I read it and watched the vote on TV I know that the vote to remove them from being protected was voted down. Maybe you should go back and read before opening your mouth.
sorry for picking apart your post...I will read and respond to the rest later....but this is NOT true. many anti war people definitely hate veterans.
All the Republicans in the previous administration and Congress who year after year cut veterans benefits to pay for the tax cuts?
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=613
http://www.reverbnation.com/brianzilm
Very few people "hate" veterans. What most anti war folks hate is the war crimes carried out by an equally small minority of soldiers. But these small minorities tend to make the news more than the average anti war protestor or average soldier just doing his job as fairly and humanely as he can.
shameful :(
I'm just sayin. the hate exists.
I'll agree with you there.
http://www.reverbnation.com/brianzilm
This is true for both sides of the political spectrum.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
And speaking of equal rights, why can't I have the same protections under the law as all members of those hate-crimes-protected groups?
If the government was offering special protections to certain groups considered the "norm" (whatever that is), I'll bet there would be a lot of people who were pretty upset.
(and by the way, the OP was correct: Voting no to exclude pedophiles from being protected is fairly similar to saying they should be protected)
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
I agree... I do think that the reason why a crime was committed can be a mitigating circumstance as far as sentencing goes, but not an additional/different charge if it was committed against a "non-protected" group.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
enjoy...
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert ... e-double-j
for the record, I think the hate-crime bill is redundant and unnecessary...a crime is a crime and should be treated as such....
Actually, Feeney's proposal would render the legislation moot and unconstitutional, because it would then be predicated on the idea of creating "protected classes." And, as has been already explained many times, hate-crimes bills aren't about creating "protected categories" -- they are strictly written to encompass the motives of the perpetrator:
Hate-crime statutes are neither written to protect specific classes of persons from assault nor to enhance the charges simply when a person from a "protected class" is the victim of a crime. We don't have laws that create stiffer time if you simply assault a black or a Jew or a gay person. The laws don't even specify races or religions. Such laws would be in clear violation of basic constitutional principles, including the equal-protection clause.
In fact, the actual class status of a victim is almost secondary to the decision whether or to file a hate-crimes charge or not. The primary concern is the motivation of the perpetrator. All of these laws are written to punish people more severely for committing a crime committed with a bias motivation.
Not everyone ever joins an armed service. Veteranhood is a not a universal trait. But the categories of bias motivation -- race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and sexual preference -- are universal human traits:
[Bias crime laws] are intended to protect everyone equally from these kinds of crimes. Everyone, after all, has religious beliefs of one kind or another; we all have a race, a gender, an ethnicity, a sexual orientation. A quick look at the FBI's annual bias-crime statistics bears this out; anti-white bias crimes are the second-largest category of racial crimes, and anti-Christian crimes constitute the second-largest in the religion category. If the laws were written as [Rooney] suggests, they couldn't possibly pass the Constitution's equal-protection muster; yet these laws have.
Finally, bias-crime laws have always been about addressing real, identifiable social pathologies that have a toxic effect on larger society. Bias crimes against veterans -- who for the most part are fairly capable of defending themselves anyway; indeed, it strikes me as insulting to cast them in the role of victims -- are not, as far as anyone can demonstrate, an identifiable problem at this time. However, racially, religiously, ethnically, and sexually motivated bias crimes are indeed very real phenomena.
It is indeed an insult to the victims of those crimes to try to trivialize their suffering with cheap tactics like this. And it's downright obscene to claim that saying so is "anti-military" or "bashing the soldiers."
Oh no.. you're not understanding what "hate crimes" legislation does.
If you kill me.. just for being gay.. your lawyer can say "But why would he kill Jasun? HE didn't even know him!"
Hate Crimes legislation allows the prosecuting attorneys to use "he killed him because he was gay" as a motive.
You still do the time for murder, it's just there so local authorities don't give you a little spank and say "oh well.. the faggot had it coming" as often happens.
You DO have the same protections as the "protected groups." I'd still go to jail for the same amount of time if I killed you and I don't think anyone has ever been attacked for being straight.
That I know of, anyway.
I haven't ever heard of veterans being victims of violent crimes because they were veterans.
seems like it would be unnecessary to include them.
and they left out the pedophiles because some of them suffer from mental disorders, something like that. not justifying it or defending them, but that's why they were left out of the bill.
Hate crime legislation original intensions was to stop predjuduce, racially motivated or similar crimes with the predetermined notion a person was being attacked because of reason x (gay, racism, etc).
And to the original poster, if anything there have been many more mentioned cases of people being harrassed because of their heritage of arab descent compared to the idea you're attempting to discuss.
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
Not sure if anyone has ever reported a hate crime against war vets.
Apparently the whole "Protecting pedophiles" is 100% fabrication. No basis in fact at all.
Typical.
Remember folks... always check your sources.