Republican Liberty Caucus encourages Senators to oppose Federal Hate Crimes Law

Image via Wikipedia

(Chattanooga, TN - May 5, 2009) A resolution called "The Local Law
Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009" (HR 1913) passed the
House this week and is now being considered in the Senate. Under this
new federal hate crimes legislation, Americans who were previously
considered legally equal under Article IV of the Constitution and the
Fourteenth Amendment would no longer be equal under the law. This law
would create privileged groups and crimes against those special
citizens would be treated as more serious than if they were committed
against ordinary citizens. The idea of different legal protections for
different classes of citizens is fundamentally contrary to the values
of this nation.

"Our legal system is based on the idea that all people are equal under
the law and that justice is blind," said Dave Nalle, Chairman of the
Republican Liberty Caucus. "When the government starts to create
special classes of victims or criminals, it is taking the fairness out
of the system and setting some people above others, thereby declaring
their suffering more important because of who they are."

Usually federal criminal legislation applies only to federal
jurisdictions and interstate crime, but this resolution is designed to
blur the line and facilitate federal involvement in crimes within
states, following the often repeated pattern of offering federal
assistance and money in exchange for an erosion of state sovereignty
and independence. In this case, the legislation provides grants of up
to $100,000 for what are effectively incentive bonuses to encourage
the prosecution of crimes as hate crimes. As has been demonstrated in
the War on Drugs, offering law enforcement money to find more crime
almost never results in justice.

The bill also raises the concern that it may only be the first step in
a whole program of similar legislation and may lead to criminalizing
unpopular speech as has happened in Canada and many nations in Europe.
At best it is a law which criminalizes the criminal's thought
processes rather than his actions, which may open the door to
criminalizing thought or speech in other situations, as well. This
resolution is directly contrary to the tradition of common law and the
protections in the Bill of Rights.

"When the government provides select groups a superior status in the
eyes of the law, it makes everyone else a second-class citizen,"
proclaimed Nalle. "That may appear to be justice when the law benefits
you, but when it's your thoughts or your unpopular ideas which are
targeted by the government -- it's tyranny."

We encourage RLC members and other concerned citizens to contact their
Senators and ask them to oppose HR 1913.

The Republican Liberty Caucus, founded in 1991, is a political 527
organization dedicated to restoring the principles of individual
liberty, limited government and free markets to government via the
Republican Party.