Seriously, I want to know where the “news” is… This is the second day in a row that I have gone to CNN, and have found them headlining something that has been circulating on the internet for months now! Not only that, but when you have to link out to a site called “that is not news”, perhaps you should dig a little deeper and find something worth reporting, right?
I am constantly frustrated with people calling the media “liberal”, and constantly highlighting what they call a liberal bias, when it is clear that it isn’t liberal at all; in fact, it isn’t even news anymore!! What is going on? It is sad when you have to rely on “underground” sources to find out what is going on in the world around you; and I, for one, really think that it shouldn’t be that way.
I think that this is one of the main reasons why we were duped as a country into electing these manipulative sickos back into office; people aren’t paying attention, and when they are, they being distracted by things that are being reported in the place of the actual stuff that is news-worthy.
Gah. I am just frustrated with the whole lot of it, really. I mean, I don’t care about republican closet cases; I care about what is going on in the world, and what is going on in our country that really AFFECTS us. Stop with the BS, and give us information that will enlighten us, and shed some perspective on our lives; something that we can use! Is that really too much to ask? I would think not, but apparently, it may be. (and dave, save anything you have to say about Fox “news”… most of what they “report” can only be described as pure fiction).
Another frustration: Senator Isakson sent James and I both letters in the mail describing why he isn’t supporting the hate crimes legislation that is currently circulating up on the hill, and the letter was complete bullshit. First of all, I just wonder why in the world someone would NOT support something such as hate crimes legislation? Isn’t it a good thing to punish people more severely for crimes that are committed out of sheer hate for someone?
Also, the letter was completely contradictory to itself; he stated that he believed in things like “dedication to the safety and well being of all US citizens” and whatnot, yet he doesn’t support actual legislation that would ensure that people are punished for committing the very crimes that would threaten the safety of certain US citizens!?? That doesn’t make sense, Mr Isakson! (maybe it is more of that whole “love the fetus, hate the child mentality that many republicans so blindly embrace).
It just frustrates me that gay and lesbian safety and for that matter, our downright freedom, is so low on so many of these old fucker’s radar; so low that they just shrug their shoulders and vote no, when we try our best to do something about it. This is a fucked up country we live in, especially when you examine who really is “protected”, and step back to see who really should have reason to fear the few nut jobs out there that hate their “kind”. All that considered, I am not surprised it doesn’t make the “news”, though… that again, would be too much, right? To actually get some useful information from the news?
Gah. I’m going to study anatomy… It’ll take my mind off of the fuckery that exists in this country every bleeding day.
Um, I didn’t vote for “them” (or to whom I think you’re inferring), nor was I “duped.” I don’t even know where you’re going with that statement?
Oh, and you should just listen to NPR. It’s really the only place I can get a decent perspective now.
Since you called me out… Are you telling me that you watch all news reports on Fox News and read all news articles on foxnews.com and have statistically proven that 50.1% or more is “pure fiction”? That must be one hell of a statistics class you’re taking.
And in regards to:
Because then you are giving the government the authority to regulate thought. Do you want the government to determine what it is ok to think and what is not?
Lori, I didn’t mean “us”, as much as I meant the US… sorry! A little confusion there; sorry about that. You are totally right, I should listen to NPR more.
Dave, if a “news” source deliberately falsifies facts for any reason, it calls into question their entire character as a reputable source. ONE false report that is knowingly passed on as fact is grounds for dismissing them as reputable, and as it is well documented, fox has WAY MORE than one. I for one, would hope that even you would expect news to be the truth more than 50% of the time.
Um, hate crimes legislation doesn’t regulate thought; it seeks harsher punishment for those that carried out horrific crimes. It isn’t so open that anything could be labeled as a hate crime, and actually makes sure that people who commit brutal murders and crimes in the name of “hate” receive the punishment they deserve.
WAY MORE? Really? The only issues I’m seem to recall are mislabeling the party of politicians. Poor form to be sure but far from “pure fiction”. I seem to recall CBS falsifying some pretty intense documents just before the election. Are they nothing more than “pure fiction” as well? CNN has F-ed up their fair share and that doesn’t include their big “X” on Cheney’s head. I think we’ve both agreed that news is nothing more than sensationalized entertainment. There is no one good place to get unbiased, factual, and timely news anymore. That’s sad. I still think your claim that Fox is “pure fiction” is ungrounded. 90% of the stories they report are pretty much identical to 90% of the stories reported on the other news channels and sites.
You hate Fox News because of its alleged conservative slant plain and simple. It doesn’t matter what they ever do, you will never believe they are anything but “pure fiction.” You, my friend, are narrow minded.
Hate crimes most definitely regulate thought. It doesn’t matter why a crime was committed. The penalty should be the same.
Shit like hate crime legislation is just another way in which minorities are trying to differentiate themselves from the majority thereby justifying the majority’s alleged view that minorities are not equal. You’re doing more to hurt your cause than you are to help it. You can’t pass a law and change the way people feel. There are better ways to educate people that being homosexual, a different race, or a different gender is normal and nothing to be scared of or feel threatened by.
Dave - “You hate Fox News because of its alleged conservative slant plain and simple.”
Replace “Fox” with CNN, and “conservative” with liberal, and that’s pretty much what you’ve said to me - verbatim - often.
Statements like this take all of the nuance out of a position. You could just as easily say “Why in the world would someone NOT support something such as children?”
Are you saying that there’s no hate-crime bill that you wouldn’t support, no matter what the language? Or do you think, perhaps, that someone could have a reasonable disagreement with a certain bill or tactic? I’m against investigating and regulating thoughtcrime, so I don’t agree with such legislation. That doesn’t mean that I support hate crimes or discrimination, as you seem to be implying. I just happen to agree with Dave that the government shouldn’t have the authority to regulate what we think, and I think the founding fathers would have agreed.
I will make no attempt to defend Fox News against claims of right-wing bias, for these claims are warranted. However, you’re making a statement of fact that is obviously untrue. I mean, if you want to speak in hyperbole, fine. If you were trying to make a factual statement, please go ahead and point to a single story currently on the front page of Foxnews.com that is pure fiction. Any story. Should be pretty easy if “most” and “pure fiction” are accurate terms.
I’m with Lori. While I may have said “pure fiction” in regards to most of what they report, I do acknowledge that this is excessive in and of itself; and accept and acknowledge that fact. But, Fox news is known to falsify information in order to give conservative slant; a lot of what you accuse CNN of doing isn’t the exact same thing, except with a liberal intentions.
Truly liberal would examine both sides, after all.
I will never agree with this. If you kill someone accidentally in a car crash, vs. you hate black people so much that you personally beat a man to death and then desecrate his body; you really believe these people should be punished equally? Additionally, a crime that that is committed in the “heat of the moment” that is driven by hatred and rage should be punished more severely, because the person that committed it is clearly unstable, and a threat to others.
Additionally, hate crime legislation does not seek to differentiate, it actually seeks to protect minorities by setting the precedent that, if you hurt someone because you hate them, you will be punished for it. It does not seek to “play victim” as you make it sound. The REASON hate crime legislation is important, is because of all of the hate related crimes that have ALREADY been committed, where the offenders were not afraid of “what would happen to them” if they brutally killed someone, as well as the fact that many of them got off with lessened punishment.
I think that you are confusing imposing boundaries on what will be tolerated, and with differentiating “crime” from “hate crime”. Hate crime is much more violent, and as such, should be dealt with more severely. If one knows that hate crime laws exist, I can bet that many of the hate crimes that have been committed in the past will not be repeated.
ming, yeah, I know I’ve said that and most of it is my grand-standing but I do buy into the ‘liberal media’ kool-aid. I don’t deny that. The difference being that I do actually read CNN news (and other alleged liberal outlets). I’ve witnessed the liberal slant not so much in what they do say but in what they don’t say.
Ah, but those are already separate crimes, so the analogy doesn’t fly. The real analogy would be you beat a man to death and then desecrate his body because he owed you money vs. you beat a man to death and then desecrate his body because you don’t like black people.
If discrimination and bigotry in someone’s mind when they commit a crime are heinous enough to warrant a new category, why aren’t you pushing to make it illegal to hate a certain group?
Let me clarify my statement, yes, I do recognize their are degrees of actions. Accidentally running the car off the road and hitting someone versus taking a gun to someone’s head execution style are two very different intentions with the same outcome. The difference being accident versus intentional killing. Those should receive different punishments (if the accident person is punished at all).
My point is, let’s say you and I were out drinking one night and some guy walks up, calls you a butt-fucking faggot piece of shit and then shoot and proceeds to shoot both of us in the head. He’s caught and goes to trial for two separate counts of first degree murder. How do you think my family is going to feel if he gets 20 years for my death and 50 years for your death on the grounds of it being a hate-crime? Does that seem fair to you?
I don’t care why someone intentionally kills another person. There is obviously something wrong with that person that caused them to kill. Do you think a white guy that would kill a black dude simply for being black wouldn’t also kill a white person for something else?
The definition of a hate-crime is vague and punishes unfairly.
That seems naïve to me. The killers of James Byrd and Matthew Shepard committed their crimes in states where the legal penalties for murder already included the death penalty. Do you really think that hate crime legislation would have caused them to lay down their weapons and back off?
Garrett, I agree, they are separate, but I was responding to dave’s response; as such, I know there are different degrees of punishment. With that being said, hate crime legislation is in response to specific horrific crimes that were committed under the guise of hate — specific hate for gays and minorities. Additionally, hate crime legislation seeks to end the use of “gay panic” as a valid reason for someone committing a crime (and as such, getting a lessened punishment). I think that the difference between our take on it, is that I see hate crime legislation addressing what has happened already, in an effort to curtail it in the future; while you see it as controlling how we think. The problem is, people have already thought this way, and have already committed these crimes; legislation making the punishment more severe could lessen the incidence to these crimes.
Dave, I don’t think the point has anything to do with what “your parents” vs. what “my parents” would think about punishment; it is about the person being punished justly for the severity of the crime they committed, AS WELL AS setting the precedent that will prevent future incidents of the same type.
Actually, this is not so; hate crimes are defined as crimes that are committed solely based on hate. They are actually difficult to prove, and as such, many times, the criminals receive greatly reduced punishments; where if they crime was committed with planning and execution, they would have been punished more severely. The point of hate crimes legislation is to both close the gap between the severity of non-hate crime planned killing and vicious hate crimes, for the purpose of making sure criminals do not get away with hate crimes, simply because of the argument, “well, wouldn’t they kill anyone?”, because that isn’t the case. Additionally, it is (in my opinion) a main goal of the legislation to set precedent that states on the record, that if you commit this form of crime, your punishment will be severe, which is, in and of itself, enough to curtail many of those that would commit such crimes in the first place. I think that it would do nothing but clarify and solidify the definition of what is and what isn’t hate crime, for the betterment of all minorities.
Well, I don’t think Dave was advocating that we legislate how the parents would feel, but rather offering an interesting thought exercise. And his point seemed to be that there is a certain victim depreciation that goes on where, broken down to its most basic level, certain victims are simply “worth” more than others when it comes to the exact same crime. Now, we already make this decision in society when it comes to certain professions. I believe killing cops and judges gets you an automatic “murder one” in many states, and I think this is somewhat justified due to their position in society. However, I’m not so quick to say that a victim is “worth” more because he’s of a different race, sexual orientation, etc.
There seems to be little doubt that the killers at Columbine were motivated by their hatred for jocks and the popular crowd that had mistreated them throughout their years in school. Klebold and Harris were, then, committing hate crimes when they went on their murder spree. However, there’s no federally defined category of discrimination that protects jocks, and there probably never will be, so the occurrence of this type of crime will not be affected in any way by hate crime legislation. I think this is illustrative of the difficulties you introduce into the system when you try to protect certain groups of victims by giving them special status in the legal system.
Oops. Meant to say “legislate based on how the parents would feel”.
Just want to point out (fully admitting I didn’t read all of your post or most of the comments) that the title on the article is “Amazing truck crash photos spark Web debate” indicating they know it’s been out there a while.
I’d also like to point out that this was one of many stories on the front page, and that this one is categorized under “Hot Topics” because it was voted on by the readers.
You (the big you, not you you) are responsible for the drivel delivered fresh to your plate daily. People vote up the Olsen twins, that’s what you’re gonna get.
Thank your fellow readers, or bash the program behind the scenes that lets them vote on articles. Bashing the site, the editors or the reporters misses the mark.
Just sayin’.
Garrett, I don’t think that any person is “better” or not than anyone else; and this is not what that legislation seeks to define. It seeks to punish this type of crime. Additionally, there are far less incidences of “jocks” being beaten to near death tied to a fence post, and left for dead, than there are incidences of it happening to gay people. However, if there is a great anti-jock movement that sparks hate based crimes against them, then yes, they would benefit from the legislation as well.
I think the difference in what we are arguing is the crime, not the punishment. Since there is no hate crimes legislation, it has to be determined what kind of crime it should fall under, which leads to it being misrepresented in many cases. Also, having these laws, again, sets a precedent; sometimes all you need is the threat of action to motivate some people to stop doing something wrong.
Maigh, if the site puts it up there as a headline, they are responsible for it. What I say on my site, regardless of where I got it from, is representative of my site; just because I say that others wanted to read it doesn’t make it less representative of me or my site. But I definitely see what you mean; people want to hear that drivel, and that’s why it is there. Sigh…
Responsible for quality of content, I’ll give ya that. Categorizing it “Most Popular” and having readers miss the meaning - eh. Can’t really hold their feet to a fire on that one.
So if a gay man kicks a breeder’s ass is that a hate-crime?
I am against hate crime laws. What is worse to you Duane that a white man beat up a black man or a black man beating up another black man? Like the Six Flags incident this summer. Black teens almost beat another black teen to death. Where are Sharprton & Jackson and where is the outrage among the black community? Sadly had it been whites doing the same it would still be making the rounds on the news. A crime is a crime regardless of what you are thinking while you are doing it.
What does thought have to do with it?