Cabbage Boy (re: all the bantering about "hate crimes"): Can anyone tell me how any crime against humanity isn't a "hate" crime? A crime is a crime. This guy obviously isn't too bright equating a muslim-catholic as a jew. But no one here claims he was brilliant anyway. But to me, the issue is when is a crime made into a hate crime? Is it when a person of a classified "victim" group suffers a crime? A crime is a crime no matter the motivation. Whether it was pre-meditated and particularly hateful should factor into the sentencing. But the whole hate crime talk bugs me. If someone calls me an f*in bast*d before punching me, isn't that a hate crime?

DFO: Cabbage Boy brings up an excellent point. I'm uncomfortable with super-sizing crimes because a "hate element" is involved. Obviously, hate of some sort is a motivating element in many crimes whether or not bigotry is involved, including rape and murder, of course. Criminalizing an individual's thought process smacks of Thought Control. In the case of the thug who threw the 17-year-old into a bonfire, the judge could have handed down a stiff sentence, with or without the hate crime element. Then, she blew that opportunity.'

Question: Have we gone too far by making hate crimes a separate category?

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