https://www.overlawyered.com/2015/10/red-wing-calls-for-attacks-on-police-to-be-considered-hate-crimes/ Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 20 Oct 2015 14:52:34 +0000 hourly 1 https://www.overlawyered.com/2015/10/red-wing-calls-for-attacks-on-police-to-be-considered-hate-crimes/comment-page-1/#comment-328466 Tue, 20 Oct 2015 14:52:34 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=55705#comment-328466 Mr. Olson, I totally agree with your objections to this proposal, however these objections would apply to ANY hate crimes, not just against police. But unfortunately that precedent was already set when SCOTUS upheld hate crimes in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, in 1993. So, if you have hate crime laws at all, then you have to apply them across the board no matter how absurd that is. What would probably happen here eventually is that “occupation” or “profession” will be added as another protected class, in addition to race, gender, etc. So – when someone beats up a taxi driver because he’s frustrated with high fares, it will be a “hate crime”. I almost welcome this; the more absurd the laws get, the more difficult they are to defend, and the greater likelihood they will be dumped entirely. We should punish the crime, not the thought crime behind it.

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