How could we have become so different, @Hacksaw? Why can we no longer understand each other? What did we do wrong? Infracted @Hacksaw (2 points for 30 days) for "posting uselessly"
I also don't think current snapshots are terribly useful in general - US vs UK for example doesn't take into account the massive recent stresses due to economic downturn, plus rampant xenophobia resulting from recent waves of immigration (some of it caused by the aforementioned economic downturn), nor the prevalence of hate-motivated crime prior to the relatively recent enforcement of the laws. Early 80s Britain prior to the 1986 Public Order Act wasn't particularly a paragon of tolerance.
Trends are better for analysis, and general crime rates with minority victims are a better base than varying definition of "Hate Crime".
In the US at least the majority of minority victims have minority assailants. Go Go Ghettos! And I still think you need to define a hate crime, to relate it to hate speech.
Well, you could for example use the 1987 California Penal Code 422.6 (and other similar laws, many of which occurred after the ghetto-ization of urban US) as a base and see the 5 years prior/5 years after comparison vs. other states.
I don't see why high prevalence of one aspect of crime invalidates the analysis of trends.
EDIT: And, no you don't need to define hate crime to relate it to hate speech. If we accept that hate crime exists as a subset of crimes with a minority victim, then changes to that crime rate following the introduction of Hate Speech laws - relative to an appropriate baseline - can be inferred as impacting on hate crime specifically, especially if you look at aggregate data of multiple enactments of Hate Speech laws in different regions. This neatly sidesteps "how do you define hate crime" and "do updated definitions of hate crime skew the data of reported hate crimes".
EDIT: And, no you don't need to define hate crime to relate it to hate speech. If we accept that hate crime exists as a subset of crimes with a minority victim, then changes to that crime rate following the introduction of Hate Speech laws - relative to an appropriate baseline - can be inferred as impacting on hate crime specifically, especially if you look at aggregate data of multiple enactments of Hate Speech laws in different regions. This neatly sidesteps "how do you define hate crime" and "do updated definitions of hate crime skew the data of reported hate crimes".
This seems like a very elaborate and intricate example of begging the question.
EDIT: And, no you don't need to define hate crime to relate it to hate speech. If we accept that hate crime exists as a subset of crimes with a minority victim, then changes to that crime rate following the introduction of Hate Speech laws - relative to an appropriate baseline - can be inferred as impacting on hate crime specifically, especially if you look at aggregate data of multiple enactments of Hate Speech laws in different regions. This neatly sidesteps "how do you define hate crime" and "do updated definitions of hate crime skew the data of reported hate crimes".
This seems like a very elaborate and intricate example of begging the question.
Admittedly it only assesses one consequence of Hate Speech, but this particular tangent arose because some proponents for Hate Speech laws threw up their hands when asked for citations that existing laws were effective.
But let's start with a set of assumptions that are generally agreeable:
* Hate Speech exists as a mechanism to express hatred directed towards a group of individuals.
* Hate Speech is presumed to have a set of consequences that are undesirable to society:
(a) An increase in crime motivated by hatred ("Hate Crime") - the subject debate of this tangent. This ranges in scale all the way from harassment to genocide.
(b) Unhappiness both in the Source of Hate Speech (it's relatively well documented that if you speak unhappy thoughts e.g. "immigrants stole my job" then you perceive yourself to be less happy) and the Target of Hate Speech (ditto). This unhappiness could be assessed in a number of ways - for example suicide rates, productivity etc. That's not the topic of this particular tangent, but the same principles generally apply.
* Within crime, there is a subset which are motivated by hatred ("Hate Crime"). Ipso facto there is also a subset which is not motivated by hatred.
* It is difficult to assess which crimes are motivated by hatred - there may not be any evidence of intent, or intent could be misconstrued, and it is difficult to define a clear set of criteria for classification.
Based on those assumptions, one hypothesis we may want to test is "Hate Speech laws reduce Hate Speech, which reduces Hate Crimes". Or increases suicide. Or general unhappiness. Or whatever undesirable consequence you wish.
Generally speaking, if it is difficult to separate a test population from the general population, you choose a subset of the general population where:
(a) The proportion of the test population is high;
(b) The test in question affects the test population and not the general population.
In this case I chose "Crimes Against Minorities". Note that of the 2 conditions given, only (b) is necessary for the validity of the test, while (a) improves the quality of the result but is not required. In this case I am assuming that minorities experience a higher proportion of hate crime than the general population, but it doesn't matter if this assumption is correct or not - it just affects the scale of the result, not the direction. If the hypothesis is true, introduction of Hate Speech laws should reduce the Hate Crime rate which will in turn reduce the Crimes Against Minorities rate. If the proportion of Hate Crime in the subject population is relatively high, that rate of change will be fairly high. If my assumption is wrong, the proportion of Hate Crime in the subject population will be low and so the rate of change will be low - but it will still be present.
So, my suggestion (in a perfect world) would be to have a test group of Crimes Against Minorities rates for regions which introduced Hate Speech laws and measure the delta (rate of change) before and after the laws were introduced, then compare to a control group of Crimes Against Minorities rates for comparable regions which did not introduce Hate Speech laws. In this way we are comparing Apples to Apples in a way that does not depend on the local definition (and therefore reporting of) Hate Crimes. By aggregating data with multiple regions, we reduce the impact of confounding effects as the common linking factor becomes "Introduction of Hate Speech laws". For example, one region could experience a rate reduction but it also coincides with a doubling of the police force - if we see a similar rate reduction in a region that did not double the police force, then we are more confident with attributing the cause to the introduction of Hate Speech laws.
If Hate Speech laws reduced the undesirable consequences of Hate Speech, then we should see a reduction in the crime rates compared with the baseline. If we do NOT see a reduction in undesirable consequences... why do we want to introduce more Hate Speech laws?
Nobody thinks hate crimes are those motivated by hatred.
It's a bit of a misnomer. Murderers usually hate their victims, but that's not usually classified as a hate crime. They're more of a general mishash of discriminatory verbal harassment that is damaging to both the victims and society. They don't really have anything to do with 'hate'. Or no more than many other crimes.
Nobody thinks hate crimes are those motivated by hatred.
It's a bit of a misnomer. Murderers usually hate their victims, but that's not usually classified as a hate crime. They're more of a general mishash of discriminatory verbal harassment that is damaging to both the victims and society. They don't really have anything to do with 'hate'. Or no more than many other crimes.
So... you think that someone who assaults another person for the sole reason of the color of their skin isn't motivated by hatred? As I said, that definition is the ENTIRE REASON why I'm NOT using Hate Crimes as the basis of my measurement - one person could assault for reasons unrelated to hatred, another person could be motivated by hatred
And point of order, that's not a factsheet on hate crime laws, that's a factsheet on hate SPEECH. As previously discussed, speech by itself isn't worthy of restriction unless it causes harm. Hence my clarification of the harmful consequences of hate speech - THAT'S what the laws are (or should be) trying to reduce. If the speech doesn't cause harmful consequences, then we shouldn't introduce the laws.
Within crime, there is a subset which are motivated by hatred ("Hate Crime"). Ipso facto there is also a subset which is not motivated by hatred.
Hate crime, or hate speech, does not mean 'those crimes or speech which are motivated by hatred' even though that's what the word say.
Your definition is not useful at all.
I will quote your document to you:
Section 319 defines “public incitement of hatred” as an indictable offence:
(1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace
Your canadians seem to think that breaches of the peace motivated by hatred are hate crimes.
I will accept that not ALL crimes motivated by hate are hate crimes, but the assumption is that reduction in hate speech will reduce the number of hate crimes (of ANY definition, which is not relevant to the actual testing of the hypothesis), which in turn will reduce the number of crimes motivated by hate, which will reduce the number of crimes in general.
Seriously, I'm an outrageous pedant, but stating "That's not the definition of hate crime, here's a Canadian document for proof" when the document in question agrees with my definition, and when the definition is clearly designated as irrelevant (and you are arguing with a parenthetical) seems fairly pointless.
EDIT: Put it this way - are there hate crimes that are NOT motivated by hatred, and if so how does Hate Speech affect them?
That's one section of many in the document. And you're not being pedantic, you're just being disingenuous. Inciting hatred is not the same as feeling hate. Those words mean different things, as do many of the others you're conflating.
* Within crime, there is a subset which are incited by hatred.
or if you prefer, the even more meaningless:
* Within crime, there is a subset which are Hate Crimes.
I seriously don't understand how this is being disingenuous as it affects NOTHING in the testing of the hypothesis (and also doesn't affect whether my previous assumption is true or not). The different definitions of Hate Crime between Canadian law, UK law, and US law is the entire reason why I offered a test that would give the same results irrespective of the definition - it would compare Apples with Apples. You arguing over the definition when it doesn't affect the outcome is pedantic.
I also don't understand how a reduction in crimes incited by hatred doesn't reduce crime in general. I also don't understand how people feel Hate Speech laws are necessary if they can't be proven to have an effect.
EDIT - I will also take it that there are no Hate Crimes which aren't motivated by hate.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
* Within crime, there is a subset which are incited by hatred.
or if you prefer, the even more meaningless:
* Within crime, there is a subset which are Hate Crimes.
I seriously don't understand how this is being disingenuous as it affects NOTHING in the testing of the hypothesis (and also doesn't affect whether my previous assumption is true or not). The different definitions of Hate Crime between Canadian law, UK law, and US law is the entire reason why I offered a test that would give the same results irrespective of the definition - it would compare Apples with Apples. You arguing over the definition when it doesn't affect the outcome is pedantic.
I also don't understand how a reduction in crimes incited by hatred doesn't reduce crime in general. I also don't understand how people feel Hate Speech laws are necessary if they can't be proven to have an effect.
EDIT - I will also take it that there are no Hate Crimes which aren't motivated by hate.
Rape is very much a hate crime in its consequences and effects, but is rarely motivated by hate (at least in the USA). It's usually dominance thing, a horrible upbringing of entitlement, or the result of a mental condition. However, it can cause alienation, rip apart families (ESPECIALLY in the case of unwanted pregnancy), cause communities to be on their toes and overly suspicious of each other.
But I don't think that it's the kind of crime we're dealing with here, which is much more of a political and racial thing. Now if it was motivated by political means (or in cases such as war), then we've got something here.
To the point, there is very little data supporting Hate Speech legislation works, and it's due to a couple factors:
1. There is no official scorekeeper for LGBT suicide rates, just the data collected from organizations like AFSP. This can be used as a way to measure acceptance or intolerance in its ratio with the suicide rates of heterosexual persons.
2. The term "hate crime" has no universal definition, so (As was mentioned earlier on the subject of Wales) what is being reported as a hate crime in one country may not be in another. We have no ability to compare countries and no real long-term data from official sources.
3. Hate Speech legislation in America would work in a similar fashion to copyright law and FCC guidelines. It's against the law to pirate movies and video games, but there's billions in pirated entertainment out there. You don't hear cussing on network television, but that has never stopped the populace from cursing out a blue streak. If any Hate Speech laws were in effect it would both be difficult to prove on a personal level (where it counts) and, in it's most effective, would only regulate the speech of the most public and national of sources. True Hate Speech legislation and enforcement would have one hell of a time monitoring the Internet, so much as that I'd even say it'd be about as effective as NASA trying to sniff out meteors before they hit us. To paraphrase Billy Bob Thornton, it's a big-ass Internet.
* Within crime, there is a subset which are incited by hatred.
or if you prefer, the even more meaningless:
* Within crime, there is a subset which are Hate Crimes.
I seriously don't understand how this is being disingenuous as it affects NOTHING in the testing of the hypothesis (and also doesn't affect whether my previous assumption is true or not). The different definitions of Hate Crime between Canadian law, UK law, and US law is the entire reason why I offered a test that would give the same results irrespective of the definition - it would compare Apples with Apples. You arguing over the definition when it doesn't affect the outcome is pedantic.
I also don't understand how a reduction in crimes incited by hatred doesn't reduce crime in general. I also don't understand how people feel Hate Speech laws are necessary if they can't be proven to have an effect.
EDIT - I will also take it that there are no Hate Crimes which aren't motivated by hate.
Inciting hatred isn't the same thing as merely being motivated by hatred.
And, as Posh said, you can commit a crime against someone because you hate their guts and it's not a "hate crime".
Now, if you try to rally your town to go burn down the local mosque, that's incitement and it's very different.
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Infracted @Hacksaw (2 points for 30 days) for "posting uselessly"
Well, you could for example use the 1987 California Penal Code 422.6 (and other similar laws, many of which occurred after the ghetto-ization of urban US) as a base and see the 5 years prior/5 years after comparison vs. other states.
I don't see why high prevalence of one aspect of crime invalidates the analysis of trends.
EDIT: And, no you don't need to define hate crime to relate it to hate speech. If we accept that hate crime exists as a subset of crimes with a minority victim, then changes to that crime rate following the introduction of Hate Speech laws - relative to an appropriate baseline - can be inferred as impacting on hate crime specifically, especially if you look at aggregate data of multiple enactments of Hate Speech laws in different regions. This neatly sidesteps "how do you define hate crime" and "do updated definitions of hate crime skew the data of reported hate crimes".
This seems like a very elaborate and intricate example of begging the question.
Admittedly it only assesses one consequence of Hate Speech, but this particular tangent arose because some proponents for Hate Speech laws threw up their hands when asked for citations that existing laws were effective.
But let's start with a set of assumptions that are generally agreeable:
* Hate Speech exists as a mechanism to express hatred directed towards a group of individuals.
* Hate Speech is presumed to have a set of consequences that are undesirable to society:
(a) An increase in crime motivated by hatred ("Hate Crime") - the subject debate of this tangent. This ranges in scale all the way from harassment to genocide.
(b) Unhappiness both in the Source of Hate Speech (it's relatively well documented that if you speak unhappy thoughts e.g. "immigrants stole my job" then you perceive yourself to be less happy) and the Target of Hate Speech (ditto). This unhappiness could be assessed in a number of ways - for example suicide rates, productivity etc. That's not the topic of this particular tangent, but the same principles generally apply.
* Within crime, there is a subset which are motivated by hatred ("Hate Crime"). Ipso facto there is also a subset which is not motivated by hatred.
* It is difficult to assess which crimes are motivated by hatred - there may not be any evidence of intent, or intent could be misconstrued, and it is difficult to define a clear set of criteria for classification.
Based on those assumptions, one hypothesis we may want to test is "Hate Speech laws reduce Hate Speech, which reduces Hate Crimes". Or increases suicide. Or general unhappiness. Or whatever undesirable consequence you wish.
Generally speaking, if it is difficult to separate a test population from the general population, you choose a subset of the general population where:
(a) The proportion of the test population is high;
(b) The test in question affects the test population and not the general population.
In this case I chose "Crimes Against Minorities". Note that of the 2 conditions given, only (b) is necessary for the validity of the test, while (a) improves the quality of the result but is not required. In this case I am assuming that minorities experience a higher proportion of hate crime than the general population, but it doesn't matter if this assumption is correct or not - it just affects the scale of the result, not the direction. If the hypothesis is true, introduction of Hate Speech laws should reduce the Hate Crime rate which will in turn reduce the Crimes Against Minorities rate. If the proportion of Hate Crime in the subject population is relatively high, that rate of change will be fairly high. If my assumption is wrong, the proportion of Hate Crime in the subject population will be low and so the rate of change will be low - but it will still be present.
So, my suggestion (in a perfect world) would be to have a test group of Crimes Against Minorities rates for regions which introduced Hate Speech laws and measure the delta (rate of change) before and after the laws were introduced, then compare to a control group of Crimes Against Minorities rates for comparable regions which did not introduce Hate Speech laws. In this way we are comparing Apples to Apples in a way that does not depend on the local definition (and therefore reporting of) Hate Crimes. By aggregating data with multiple regions, we reduce the impact of confounding effects as the common linking factor becomes "Introduction of Hate Speech laws". For example, one region could experience a rate reduction but it also coincides with a doubling of the police force - if we see a similar rate reduction in a region that did not double the police force, then we are more confident with attributing the cause to the introduction of Hate Speech laws.
If Hate Speech laws reduced the undesirable consequences of Hate Speech, then we should see a reduction in the crime rates compared with the baseline. If we do NOT see a reduction in undesirable consequences... why do we want to introduce more Hate Speech laws?
It's a bit of a misnomer. Murderers usually hate their victims, but that's not usually classified as a hate crime. They're more of a general mishash of discriminatory verbal harassment that is damaging to both the victims and society. They don't really have anything to do with 'hate'. Or no more than many other crimes.
Here's a factsheet on the Canadian laws:
http://www.cjpmo.org/DisplayDocument.aspx?DocumentID=759
So... you think that someone who assaults another person for the sole reason of the color of their skin isn't motivated by hatred? As I said, that definition is the ENTIRE REASON why I'm NOT using Hate Crimes as the basis of my measurement - one person could assault for reasons unrelated to hatred, another person could be motivated by hatred
And point of order, that's not a factsheet on hate crime laws, that's a factsheet on hate SPEECH. As previously discussed, speech by itself isn't worthy of restriction unless it causes harm. Hence my clarification of the harmful consequences of hate speech - THAT'S what the laws are (or should be) trying to reduce. If the speech doesn't cause harmful consequences, then we shouldn't introduce the laws.
Your post said this:
Hate crime, or hate speech, does not mean 'those crimes or speech which are motivated by hatred' even though that's what the word say.
Your definition is not useful at all.
I will quote your document to you:
Your canadians seem to think that breaches of the peace motivated by hatred are hate crimes.
I will accept that not ALL crimes motivated by hate are hate crimes, but the assumption is that reduction in hate speech will reduce the number of hate crimes (of ANY definition, which is not relevant to the actual testing of the hypothesis), which in turn will reduce the number of crimes motivated by hate, which will reduce the number of crimes in general.
Seriously, I'm an outrageous pedant, but stating "That's not the definition of hate crime, here's a Canadian document for proof" when the document in question agrees with my definition, and when the definition is clearly designated as irrelevant (and you are arguing with a parenthetical) seems fairly pointless.
EDIT: Put it this way - are there hate crimes that are NOT motivated by hatred, and if so how does Hate Speech affect them?
or if you prefer, the even more meaningless:
I seriously don't understand how this is being disingenuous as it affects NOTHING in the testing of the hypothesis (and also doesn't affect whether my previous assumption is true or not). The different definitions of Hate Crime between Canadian law, UK law, and US law is the entire reason why I offered a test that would give the same results irrespective of the definition - it would compare Apples with Apples. You arguing over the definition when it doesn't affect the outcome is pedantic.
I also don't understand how a reduction in crimes incited by hatred doesn't reduce crime in general. I also don't understand how people feel Hate Speech laws are necessary if they can't be proven to have an effect.
EDIT - I will also take it that there are no Hate Crimes which aren't motivated by hate.
Rape is very much a hate crime in its consequences and effects, but is rarely motivated by hate (at least in the USA). It's usually dominance thing, a horrible upbringing of entitlement, or the result of a mental condition. However, it can cause alienation, rip apart families (ESPECIALLY in the case of unwanted pregnancy), cause communities to be on their toes and overly suspicious of each other.
But I don't think that it's the kind of crime we're dealing with here, which is much more of a political and racial thing. Now if it was motivated by political means (or in cases such as war), then we've got something here.
To the point, there is very little data supporting Hate Speech legislation works, and it's due to a couple factors:
1. There is no official scorekeeper for LGBT suicide rates, just the data collected from organizations like AFSP. This can be used as a way to measure acceptance or intolerance in its ratio with the suicide rates of heterosexual persons.
2. The term "hate crime" has no universal definition, so (As was mentioned earlier on the subject of Wales) what is being reported as a hate crime in one country may not be in another. We have no ability to compare countries and no real long-term data from official sources.
3. Hate Speech legislation in America would work in a similar fashion to copyright law and FCC guidelines. It's against the law to pirate movies and video games, but there's billions in pirated entertainment out there. You don't hear cussing on network television, but that has never stopped the populace from cursing out a blue streak. If any Hate Speech laws were in effect it would both be difficult to prove on a personal level (where it counts) and, in it's most effective, would only regulate the speech of the most public and national of sources. True Hate Speech legislation and enforcement would have one hell of a time monitoring the Internet, so much as that I'd even say it'd be about as effective as NASA trying to sniff out meteors before they hit us. To paraphrase Billy Bob Thornton, it's a big-ass Internet.
Inciting hatred isn't the same thing as merely being motivated by hatred.
And, as Posh said, you can commit a crime against someone because you hate their guts and it's not a "hate crime".
Now, if you try to rally your town to go burn down the local mosque, that's incitement and it's very different.