In the wake of the spree of cop killings, there is a push to make it a hate crime to kill a police officer. Blue lives matter. Like all the previous hate crime legislation that preceded it, this is a bad idea. The effect of hate crime legislation is to mete out different punishments depending on who the victim is. Thus, sometimes the same crime is punished more harshly because of 'hate.' Murder is murder and it should have a set punishment. The law should not say that it is worse to kill Officer Muldoon than it is to kill Peggy Smith the college student but neither of these is as bad as killing Tyrone Johnson the black man. And let's not get started on how much worse than all of these it would be to kill a homosexual. Many of those opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement have replied with All Lives Matter. However, we are writing laws that are weighting the value of lives depending on who is the perpetrator and who is the victim.
If Jack killed Sam, he gets 30 years to life. But if Jack is white and Sam is black, Jack gets 40 to life. But if Jack is Black and Sam is Asian, he gets 25 to life. Now, if Sam is homosexual, Jack gets 35 to life, no possibility of parole. If Sam is a cop, Jack gets a life sentence. If both Jack and Sam are black, Jack gets 20 to life. If it turns out that Sam is short for Samantha, then Jack gets 35 years for misogyny unless Jack is short for Jacquelyn, in which case Jack gets 15 years; women aren't as much of a threat to society and can be released earlier. If Jack is black and Sam is a white heterosexual male, then there cannot be hate. In that case, Jack gets the standard 30 to life. If it isn't obvious, I am randomly generating these sentences but the point remains that the same crime is punished differently, thus making certain lives matter more than others.
Thought experiment: Let us suppose that the standard hate-free sentence for murder is 30 years. A Klan member kills a black man and gets 30 years for the killing and 5 additional years for the hate. Well, if that is the case, let's round up all the Klan members and sentence them to 5 years for hate. After all, the hate is there right now. If hate crime legislation is a good idea, let's punish the hate before the crime is committed.
Hate, like gluttony or greed or even rudeness, is bad but it isn't a crime. Laws should punish specific acts based upon the act itself, not the motivation of the actor. If Jack hated Sam or not is irrelevant to Sam being dead. Whether Sam was white, black, Asian, homosexual, transsexual, female, or a police officer doesn't change the fact that Sam is dead and Jack did it. If All Lives Matter, then equal punishment should be meted out for all lives.
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