Richard Cohen, Asshat Of The Week

"The real purpose of hate-crime laws is to reassure politically significant groups -- blacks, Hispanics, Jews, gays, etc. -- that someone cares about them and takes their fears seriously. That's nice. It does not change the fact, though, that what's being punished is thought or speech. ... I doubt that any group of drunken toughs is going to hesitate in their pummeling of a gay individual or an African American or a Jew on account of it being a hate crime. If they are not already deterred by the conventional penalties -- prison, etc. -- then why would additional penalties deter them? And if, in fact, they kept their mouths shut, refrained from the N-word or the F-word or the K-word, and simply made the beating or the killing seem one triggered by dissing or some other reason, then they would not be accused of hate -- merely of murder or some such trifle. If, though, they gave vent to their thoughts, they would be in for real trouble. For the most part, hate-crime legislation is just a sop for politically influential interest groups -- yet another area in which liberals, traditionally sensitive to civil liberties issues, have chosen to mollify an entire population at the expense of the individual and endorse discredited reasoning about deterrence."

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen on Hate Crimes laws.

First off, the Hate Crimes laws does not affect thought or speech, but action.

It works a little something like this: I read asshat statements like this, from Richard Cohen, and I think he is the most ill-informed illiterate hack on the planet. And i can do that. I can also open my mouth, or my computer keyboard, and speak or write that Richard Cohen is the most ill-informed illiterate hack on the plant. That's okay, too. What I cannot do, is use my opinion of Mr. Cohen to physically attack him in any way.

That would be a hate crime.

Got it now..............................Dick?