Don’t misunderstand my statement. I am not encouraging the nullification of hate crime laws, rather calling attention to their inherent redundancy. In a society that is philosophically equipped to meet its own spirit, the laws against violent crimes would immediately be cause enough to curtail any violent crimes no matter their source or motivation. The existence of hate crime legislation (not including hate speech legislation, which is a clarification and limitation of both libel and Freedom of Speech) is paramount to a failure on the part of our country to actively or appropriately address violent crimes in general and to give a specific stigma to the violation of the spirit of the country as embodied by “all men created equal” on the part of the government “of the people” that are in fact being attacked. However, if all men are created equal then shouldn’t all violent crimes be equal? It’s a question I wrestle with every time I hear a story about “hate crimes”, mostly because violent crimes are all rooted in some kind of hate and it seems to me that in drawing a distinction between ordinary violent crimes and hate fuelled violent crimes is either one of two things: a) it is making the hate crime for reprehensible to create a priority for minority and fringe groups or b) its making a hate crime reprehensible because it is rooted in a direct antithesis to our ideological core value that all men are created equal, and the crime committed is an effigy against a group rather than an individual act.
It seems that at the heart of every issue our country faces, there is a fundamental crisis with just this very part of our republic’s soul. We believe that all men (or to be clear, humans) are created equal and endowed, not granted, certain inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The major contention in there is of course the piece about equal creation, but also the rights that equal creation grant. For example, if all men are created equal, then why are they not educated or prosecuted equally before blind justice? Are all people worthy of entry into this country, and participation as citizens? If so, by what process, if not then are all men only created equally within the borders of the United States? Why are street criminals given life-altering and stigmatizing Hard Time sentences for peddling contraband) while banksters are given trips to Club Fed and returned to their white collar positions of power, not even barred from working in the industry that all but guarantees recidivism, with a high rate of return profit? Both cause major societal harms in either economic or physical or psychological domains—but it seems that the law is that much harsher on the street level than in the penthouses. Are these men created equal as well? Are men created as homosexuals not deserving to pursue happiness and marry their lovers of the same gender? Are bright and talented children of little means and many shades of brown not deserving of a fair shot in their educations and employment? How are these fair shots to be determined in a way that doesn’t imbalance the scales in the opposite direction?
Currently, some of these questions are being debated in the Supreme Court, and while they may be passed upon or given some sort of “mulligan”, eventually we are going to have to decide what equality means, and how our creation actually affects our ability to exercise our liberty and make choices that determine the quality of our lives and our levels of happiness. We will also have to decide which people the government is by, of, and for. Finally, we are going to have to ask and answer the underlying question that will decide the reality of our foundational ideals: If all men are created equally, does that mean that we have to treat all men equally?
I’m personally hoping the answer is yes. The only adventure left after that is “how”—and I’d be delighted to find out that it’s an adventure we’ve already embarked on.
Equal is therefore teetering