photo credit: ilkin.

The hate crime debate has stirred back up as the house recently passed legislation to include several other groups and as usual it’s a simple yet complex issue.  Simple yet complex in the sense that people either over simplify or over complicate based on their agenda.  The left says it’s a matter of protecting certain groups from discrimination and violence, while the right says it disrupts the idea of equal justice under the law.  Like almost every single issue that passes through congress, and hasn’t already been decided by lobbyists, both sides are right and wrong.  Neither side has the intelligence nor integrity to actually address the issue correctly and come up with a solution together that helps everyone.  I’ll go ahead and throw in my two cents but two pennies are not nearly enough to combat special interests bent on getting their way no matter what.

I’ll start with the right because—let’s face it—they are an easy target nowadays, and once again they have taken the stance closest to my own while simultaneously completely missing the point.  They are taking the stance that by passing legislation to increase punishment on people that attack a certain group you are in effect getting rid of equal justice.  One question I heard recently is, “If I punch you in the face because you have a stupid hat (rather then the color of your skin), is your nose any less broken?” which is a valid point. Damage done to an individual is not determined by the motivation for the attack.  At the same time, people do not attack other people based on hat style while they do attack other people based on things like skin color or sexual preference.  There is something the right is not seeing here and that is that the proponents of this legislation have a valid point, although most are probably missing that point.

Hate crimes are seen as more disruptive to society, in that someone is attacked because they’re representative of a group.  Regardless of why a person is attacked, it is society’s job to seek justice, not revenge, and that includes action to prevent the crime from reoccurring. You could argue that attacks based on group affiliation are more likely to reoccur due to lack of significant motive. Someone who attacks another person for sleeping with his spouse is less likely to repeat offend than someone who attacks a person because of the color of his skin. That is unless his spouse is really promiscuous.  To put it simply, someone who attacks due to adultery is less of a threat than someone who attacks people based on disability, if only for the significantly lower amount of available victims.  In the end it’s about getting groups of completely different people to live and work together, which is what justice is about.  Revenge is an individual thing while justice is about correcting behavior so everyone can live together.  People may feel better knowing that someone is behind bars and is being punished, but the goal is not to make some people feel better.

I can see why they would pass a law like this, but I don’t agree. The justice system is supposed to assess and administer a more severe punishment if the circumstances warrant. This essentially takes that decision out of their hands, somewhat. If a guy comes home and finds someone of a different ethnicity banging his wife then stabs the guy while calling him a racial slur it could be classified as a hate crime and he could receive a more severe punishment. No doubt stabbing the guy is not justified, but to receive a harsher punishment because he used a racial slur before committing his crime is not justice.  The examples are endless and varied for how this legislation can go wrong, but it’s pretty much about the left getting tag lines for their re-election campaigns.  That may seem harsh, but the fact is they are not trying to change anything. They’re just slapping legislation out there that will make them look good.  I mean, who can argue against it?

The left’s biggest problem is that they are looking at people as groups and not people.  They are essentially saying that because of the status of certain groups as minorities they deserve extra justice.  You can tell this position is flawed because they had to redo it to include more groups.  What happens when there’s another group that needs to be added? It’s now more of crime for a group of men to randomly attack someone of a different skin color than for the same group to attack a random person because he’s fat, from a different school, has a different political opinion, or any other reason. Attacks or offenses based solely on an ignorant bias are more harmful than those with a specific motive, but that intention should be determined by a judge and jury—not grand standing politicians.  Revenge is about consoling the victim; justice is about dealing with someone who violated another’s rights.

You can’t determine justice based on the victim, especially when the only reason for the attack is ignorant bias.  It has to deal with the offender and what the offender did.  Which makes more sense—a law against assaulting a certain religious sect, or a law against assault period?  Obviously the latter, and from there you deal with punishment.  There’s reason for a range of punishments.  Someone who assaults his accountant because he found out the accountant had been stealing would obviously get a lesser sentence than someone who joined a group of people in assaulting someone for no other reason than being different.  The question that should be debated is whether the existing system is working to protect members of society that are victims of random acts of violence motivated by bigotry.  Are there enough instances out there of people not receiving adequate punishment and repeat offending?  Would legislation giving judges and juries the option of additional punishment, based on the crime being violent and motivated by bigotry, be sufficient to correct the problem?

Of course no one on either side will admit that they can’t solve a problem based on sweeping over generalized legislation.  What would congress do if it weren’t constantly stacking shitty laws on top of other shitty laws?  As usual, it’s name-calling and political machinations.  The very notion of creating legislation that would allow people to decide is toxic to politicians.  All they see is affiliations, color, creed, preference, and everything else that divides people.  The very thought that we are a nation that is so diverse that many of the “solutions” they come up with will not work everywhere and for everyone is unthinkable.  Specifically because it would involve them giving up power.  They can’t see people because that involves looking past everything else that they can use to get votes or sway opinion.  Race, religion, and party affiliation are tools they use to control people.  They don’t want to prevent attacks against people who are different; they want to prevent attacks against certain people who they decide deserve that protection.  When they need a certain group’s votes they’ll add them to the list until everyone is on it and all we have accomplished is increasing the punishment for everyone regardless of the group to which they belong.  Which will bring us right back to where we started, only with the incumbents having more special interest money in their pockets.

photo credit: The Doctr

Programmed cell death is pretty much what it says: the end of the life cycle for a cell.  Not due to damage or injury, but the natural end of a cell so another can take its place.  One of the shitty things about cancerous cells is that they have protection against programmed cell death, which combined with hyperactive growth and division makes them a nasty piece of work.

As I was reading the latest on our economic downward spiral it made me think of cancer.  Mostly because of our government’s reaction in propping up companies that are “too big to fail.”

Dead animals provide nutrients for soil.  Dead plants and animals are consumed for energy.  Nothing is really permanent, and even rocks are worn away by wind and water.  Making something permanent is impossible, and trying to is responsible for more then a few fuckups.   Business is no different, and even the companies that have been around for a while have been through significant changes.  Mergers, buy-outs, acquisitions, etc. have made many of the big companies completely different animals over the years.  No business model or strategy will work forever; and if a company isn’t able to adapt it needs to be allowed to die,  its remains consumed.  Permanency is impossible, but recycling works.

The problem with the bailout is the same problem with the congress.  Too many people have been living fat as parasites in a system that favored them.  Some would say that it was the parasitic overreaching with legislation like the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention Act of 2005 that caused this mess in the first place.  In effect, it made it harder for struggling people to let their bad debt die so they could rebuild.  Instead, the credit card companies wanted to go after the person’s house and alimony payments.  Society benefits from well-employed people growing and interacting financially with others.  Creditors found they made the most with people on the edge of collapse from a mountain of debt and fees.  They paid off politicians, bent, and just plain broke rules to squeeze as much as they could.

Not passing that act would have given some people a respite from foreclosure.   Not bailing out AIG would have put more pressure on banks to refinance loans that were no longer insured.  Not giving bad companies the unregulated capitol to buy up their competition wouldn’t create zombies that bring down good companies.  The government being led by those who created these problems reminds me of early, poorly thought-out conservation attempts, where people who worked tirelessly to save one animal found out that the newly revitalized critter was overtaking and destroying its environment.  Thankfully, we have mostly learned our lesson there.

The new stimulus act doesn’t look much better, even discounting all pet projects and delayed money.  If it works like it’s supposed to, it will create 4 million new jobs at $200,000 a pop (800 billion divided by the number of jobs).  Even if that were somehow, in some universe, the most cost affective way to create jobs, you have to wonder how much of that will make it into workers’ pockets.  There’s a lot of construction in there, so who gets to do the building?  There will probably be a multitude of factors, the main one being money.  So any company will have to account for political contributions as a cost to even get a foot in the door.  After that, it will probably be whoever is most creative with their books.  In the end, I seriously doubt workers will even see half of that.  Beyond all that though, creating 4 million jobs in country with 306 million people doesn’t seem like it will have the sweeping impact that most people seem to think, especially when the job creation is in only one or two sectors.

What happens to all those construction jobs a couple of years from now?  We will pretty much be in the same situation.  As far as I know, there is no plan for sustained maintenance of our infrastructure.  If there were, we would not need the massive infusion of cash.  Infrastructure is important; but if we are going to pay for it, it should be tied to a source of revenue that is constant.  This plan just throws money at the problem with no thought of what happens next.  Where will those 4 million workers go after the stimulus runs out?  Isn’t this just creating another problem with a huge number of people jumping into construction because that’s where the money is?  This doesn’t make sense to me, and the main problem is that there is no dialogue going on.  The simplistic way that congress debates these issues reminds me of a 4th grade book report more than an intelligent debate on a large-scale economic system.  In essence, congress is bent on the same parasitic course as the banking system: keep people on the edge of disaster and dependent on you.  That way you can do what you wish under the protection of the enormous disaster you created.

The best idea I’ve actually heard came from the Daily show guest Lawrence Lindsey.  His idea is to cut the payroll tax and increase the top limit.  This would immediately put money in the pockets of workers and businesses.   People walk away every payday with more money to pay bills and pay down all the bad debt in the system, because that’s supposed to be the problem—right?  All the bad debt in the economy?  Business would also get a break and have a little more money to work with, and more importantly it would decrease the cost of hiring new workers and keeping existing staff.  Would it work?  Maybe or maybe not, but it’s got a better shot then the opportunistic pile of crap that just got passed by the Senate.  At least it’s addressing the problem instead of growing more cancerous business, and lining more pockets.