(with apologies to The Firesign Theatre)
Back in the early 90′s, when I worked at TMCCC (in offices located above a shopping mall), I would sometimes take my lunch in the mall, itself. And visit the (chain) bookstore.
During one bookstore visit, I remember seeing a new book entitled The Politically-Correct Dictionary. This was a fairly new term in my lexicon, and I picked it up to page through, thinking it was a satirical book. It wasn’t. It was dead serious.
I’ve blocked most of the definitions from my mind, largely because they were stupid and/or offensive to me.
One that sticks in my brain though was GRAFFITI (n.) People’s art. (progressively dismissing private property rights and vandalism crime in one fell swoop)
Fast forward to an entry courtesy of WyBlog (May 21, 2012). It seems Dharun Ravi, the roommate of Tyler Joe Clementi McAllister, who was embarrassed by Mr. Ravi, outing him on a secret camera, was convicted.
Mr. McAllister committed suicide, allegedly because of this outing.
Dharun Ravi will serve a 30-day jail term, beginning on May 31.
Ravi will have a three year probation sentence. He will also have to complete 300 hours of community services, and attend a counseling program relative to cyber bullying and alternate lifestyles.
He will also have to pay $10,000 to the probation department. The sum will be allotted to a facility dedicated to victims of bias crimes.
Now I’m no advocate of gay-bashing, or outing, or publicly embarrassing anyone. It’s very sad this young man ended his life. And I find Mr. Ravi’s behavior beyond contemptible. But, equally contemptible is a court system which attempts to brainwash a citizen because he isn’t ‘thinking correctly’. It’s like this clown preacher who’s been on the news, stating all the gays should be rounded up and put into camps, so they will eventually die off from no procreation. He’s a complete idiot.
But in The United States, the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights enumerates specific natural rights, including free speech, containing within it the right to be complete idiots. If we allow government to ‘tweak’ the thinking of the most egregiously offensive or narrow-minded of us, who’s to say the next step isn’t ‘he’s a gun person (or a libertarian), he needs reprogramming’?
This is why I Hate Hate Crime. Whether the perpetrator stole the loaf of bread because he didn’t like the color of the baker’s skin, or because he was hungry, or was just a thief, should make no difference. Theft is theft.
And government ‘counseling’ in the name of political correctness is brainwashing.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Voltaire
h/t J, Chris Wysocki
So it seems that George Orwell wasn’t wrong … merely 30 years too soon.
Posted by Rev. Paul | May 23, 2012, 8:52 amI too despise the concept of hate crime. There may be mitigating circumstances to a crime, but a crime is a crime. And I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t matter whether or not I like the person when I kill them.
Posted by ProudHillbilly | May 23, 2012, 2:38 pmExcellent point! Crime is CRIME… plain and simple, you cannot sugar coat it regardless of how hard one tries!
Posted by Old NFO | May 23, 2012, 5:46 pm