Thugs Will Need Etiquette Lessons

Bill Clinton has announced plans to muzzle America’s extremists in the name of what’s righteous and right. He wants sweeping new curbs on “hate crimes,” which are defined as malicious acts committed against certain groups.

This is tricky business. Hate is a primal sin, and bad people shower it indiscriminately on innocents. Nevertheless, the president seems concerned only with specific forms of enmity. He, along with Sens. Edward Kennedy, Arlen Specter and Ron Wyden, wants extra punishment for those who bash minorities, gays or the handicapped.

This would produce some odd results. If somebody beat a handicapped man with a hammer and called him a “jerk,” the thug would get a “normal” sentence. If, on the other hand, someone pushed over a person in a wheelchair while using an unacceptable epithet, such as “gimp,” the malefactor could get an even stiffer punishment. In short, the president wants to create an etiquette for muggers.

If you scrape away the rhetoric, however, some interesting facts come into view. The president’s scheme not only would smack predators; it also could use federal might to squash people who say uncivil things. At least 57 percent of all hate crimes reported in 1995 were verbal in nature. The remaining misdeeds - arson, assault, rape and murder - don’t seem to need special emphasis: Courts already treat them harshly.

The chief executive is grandstanding, but with a political aim in mind. Roger Pilon, a constitutional expert at the Cato Institute, notes that “this whole effort smacks of redefining crime in the politically fashionable categories of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and so forth - pandering to the special interests that constitute the diminishing base of the Democratic Party.”

Yet it defies common sense to believe that the logic of political correctness, once unleashed on the criminal population, would end there. Eventually, courts and lawyers would track down everybody who assaulted a member of the victim class or uttered harsh words in anger. This raises interesting questions:

Is it a hate crime when Jesse Jackson calls someone a racist? (There is no worse epithet in America today. Ask Washington Capitals left wing Chris Simon.)

Is it a hate crime when a PETA activist splashes blood on a furrier’s wares?

When a pederast seduces a child?

When environmentalists prevent loggers from earning a living?

When the president dismisses his critics as “extremists,” thus redefining dissent as a form of terrorism?

Gestures have become paramount in this presidency and in contemporary American society, while facts have become mere inconveniences. Consider the “church burning” crisis of 1996. The purported epidemic was a fraud manufactured by USA Today and fanned by the Clinton White House. Journalist Michael Fumento, using Department of Justice figures, has demonstrated that arson rates weren’t abnormal in 1996 - at least not until the stories appeared, at which point, copycats took up their matchbooks and kerosene cans.

The left’s fascination with hate crimes stems in part from liberals’ realization that they have lost the battle over who defines values. So, they have decided to get their way through the use of force. Writer Jonathan Rauch has coined the term “purism” to describe liberals’ utter intolerance for those who stray from the one true secular faith.

This tactic necessarily degenerates into moral fascism. First, the government examines words used by criminals. In time, as miscreants adjust, prosecutors search for criminal intent in “code words,” then gestures, articles of clothing and so on. Pretty soon, nobody can speak at ease, for fear of unwittingly breaking the law.

The president and the senators suggest razing the wall of separation between church and state to leave only the state. Nothing better captures the essence of Clinton morality: unbounded skepticism in the goodness of others and equally limitless faith in the benevolence of government.

This is a fateful choice. There are two ways to combat crimes inspired by hate: You can use moral suasion to make them hopelessly uncool and unacceptable, or you can discourage them with raw force.

In Clinton’s world, state moralists would exercise power over the people. Impure thoughts would attract stiff punishment before they could lead to harsher things. The only goons who could escape the lash would be those who observed proper etiquette while bashing their victims - or those who, when quizzed about their actions, employed the Clinton Defense: “I don’t remember a thing.”

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