"I-I-I-I HATE You, and I-I-I-I BERATE You, and I-I-I-I Say --"

Fun little scene from Star Trek IV: "The One With the Whales and that Chick Smuggling Gumdrops In Her Bra".

Anyway, hate crimes.

Apropos of nothing, I thought of this topic today on the way into work, no doubt unconsciously jarred from my brain-attic by some half-heard thing on the radio, or an email from my Republican Party Masters (don't you see?!?!?).

It seems so silly to me. Aside from the rather obvious fact that I'm no more dead or assaulted or graffitied or whatever if the perpetrator meant it really personally or not, two other points are raised:

1) Isn't Justice supposed to be blind? If we're not supposed to let it influence us that the accused is, say, black, then aren't we also supposed to not be influenced by the fact that the alleged victim is, say, white? It seems pretty easy to turn the logic around and demand that a Star Wars fanboy get a harsher sentence for making fun of a Trekkie than, say, a fan of neither might. And that way lies the very thing the berobed lady with the scales is supposed to NOT stand for: prejudicial treatment.

2) What's the point? Is there someone out there who is really so disconnected from reality that they actually think that criminals, especially the kinds of repugnant assclowns who drag people behind trucks, are thinking about consequences? Hell's Bells, they're either not thinking at all or they're thinking that they won't get caught, which is why they're doing it in the first gorramned place.

Seriously, is the guy thinking "Man it bugs me that that guy came on to me, and I'd really like to cut his throat for somehow offending my masculinity, but that'd be an extra five in the pen for me. If he wasn't a swish, though, I'd fucking end him." Come on, people, use your heads.

Use your frikkin' heads.