| | I disagree with hate crimes legislation also, but I think Camille overstates the case here, or at least uses imprecise wording. Motivation can matter when determining whether a killing is a premeditated first degree murder, a "heat of the moment" second degree murder, manslaughter, an accidental death, or justified self-defense.
The difference between all these and hate crimes, though, is that these distinctions above delve into whether the person initiated force, and if so, whether they intended to commit the act, and if so, how cold-blooded they were in committing the offense. All of this should be relevant, since it determines whether the person believes in the NIOF (Non-Initiation of Force) principle, and if not, how likely they are to repeat their acts.
Hate crimes legislation, however, tries to determine whether a person harbored malignant thoughts against a person in a politically powerful class. It thus introduces the notion that people who have a lobby that has curried sufficient favor with the political elite deserve to be treated differently under the law. It is a thoughtcrime.
That is, it attempts to codify into law racism, sexism, etc. Or, from Orwell's "Animal Farm", "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."
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I have been on the record since the 1990s as strongly opposing hate crimes legislation. I think it is a totalitarian intrusion into citizens' thought processes. Government functionaries should not be ceded the dangerous authority to make decisions about motivation. They aren't novelists, psychologists or sibyls! Furthermore, there should be no special privileged class of protected groups in a democracy. A crime is a crime -- period.
