San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

I thought justice was blind.

Change we can believe in from the Obama administration...

This is a necessary piece of a larger puzzle. Once this legislation is in effect, what you will see is that members of the "more equally protected" groups will be placed as pitchmen for new policies (expanded police state powers, more bailouts for the banksters, more wars on 3rd world countries, etc...) When anyone speaks out against these policies, the pitchman will be considered "threatened" and the critics will be silenced.

Everything's going according to plan...

"No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up." - Lily Tomlin

The original federal hate crime statute was passed specifically to address the issue of whites using force or intimidation to keep minorities from voting, attending public facilities (e.g. schools), applying for federal jobs. That was back in 1968. It was not intended to address all interracial crimes regardless of circumstances, or all incidents where one person assaults another because he "hates" that specific person (as the title might imply).

So, technically, Holder is correct.

Holder is seeking to expand current hate crime legislation..

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/25/h...

Apparently, in Holder's mind, 'color of our skin' implies NON WHITE only. He's obviously a hypocrite and a bigot. That's the problem.

It's not Holder pushing the hate crimes bill. Some group has been pushing for it before Holder came to town.

Anisa Abd el Fattah, President of National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW) points out: “Before our Congress passes such a law there are many questions to be answered, the most important of which is ‘who’ will decide that a given act is a ‘hate 
crime’?” The Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) originally wrote this bill. Arab, Latino and African-American organisations support it because they hope that prosecuting “hate” will decrease racist attacks on their communities. Serious fears exist, however, about the government surveillance centre, given the highly politicised nature of hate crimes labeling.

"...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Matthew Shepard was white.

Please listen to the webcast. He did not say anything about "non white"-ness. The specific statement in the original post was in response to the question whether a murder of a soldier should be considered a hate crime. He said that soldiers as a group were not historically targeted for violence, as opposed to African Americans or Jews. I don't think you'd argue that there are far more historic precedents of bias crimes against Jews than against whites.

Racially motivated attacks on whites are already covered by existing legislation dating back to 1968 (which used color-blind language, even though it was created in response to primarily white-on-black incidents). Whether or not Holder personally considers it possible for blacks to commit bias crimes against whites, it's not relevant for our legal system. There are numerous precedents of convictions for anti-white hate crimes. In 2004, 20% of all racially motivated incidents in the country were anti-white. There's also insufficient evidence, based on his testimony, that he in fact sees things that way.

Or better yet, read the bill;

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s90...
any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (HR 1966, SEC 3

I'm not a fan of this bill at all. First, it definitely does seem to take aim directly at the First Amendment. Second, just personall speaking, I far prefer an atmosphere where everyone can say exactly what they're thinking. That way the racists and homophobes stand out loud and clear, exposed for exactly what they are. Think of how one could whittle down their Christmas card list if everyone had complete freedom to say what they were really thinking at any given time...

IMO, this is not aimed at "white" people, this is aimed at thought control.

The plaintiff wont have to prove emotional distress , the defendant will have to prove no emotional distress. Every fuckdoodle with a grudge and filing fee money can make someone else's life miserable.

To think you can legislate away racism is laughable. It will make things worse and cause more tensions.

It will certainly limit the unbridled commentary most of us feel free to express here. Who knows what will constitute substantial emotional distress. It should be a field day for the lawyers. I would like to go back to the 80's now. I liked the music better then.

With the exception of Thomas Dolby and Men Without Hats, I would tend to agree with you.

A stinging attack by John Hartigan, the CEO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited, labels bloggers and alternative media outlets as “political extremists”. Hartigan implies that bloggers should be jailed as they are in oppressive police states like China and Burma.

Political extremists "bloggers" could cause "substantial" emotional distress.

This is what I fear. They are trying to censor free-speaking people on the internet. Nothing about this is good, IMHO.

I am sure they were terrified by watching what happened in Iran: people empowered by free speech. They fear what they cannot control or contain. They are more like the Mullahs in power there than they are like the founding fathers of this country.