A classic example of identitarian politics is to be found in the calls for "hate crimes" legislation, which Sean Kinsell addresses in an excellent post. The idea behind hate crime theory is that it is morally more egregious to attack an individual because of his perceived status or membership in a group you hate than it would be if you singled him out because you hated him personally, or wanted his money.

The biggest problem I see with this is once there's a list, it not only politicizes the criminal justice process, it it sets up disappointed groups to demand inclusion. If, for example, it is a special offense to target someone for being gay, then why shouldn't it be an offense to target someone for being elderly, female, a child, a Republican, a Democrat, a "yuppie," a "hippie," a cop, a member of the military, or an obvious member of the SUV-driving, conspicuous consumption class? The categories create a formal legal determination that the listed categories are more worthy of protection by the state than the categories not listed -- something which is by its nature unjust, because if the crime is based on hating someone for being a member of a group, the mindset (I hate you not because of who you are, but because of I hate the class to which I perceive you belong).

Not that anyone would defend such hatred. Certainly, attacking someone for belonging to a group evinces a heinous and morally culpable mindset. But there is a mechanism in place to deal with people who commit such crimes, and it's called judicial discretion. Laws like this substitute the political process for something the trial judge is in the best position to determine.

In many cases, whether the hatred involves an individual or his membership in a group is not clear. Unless the criminal belongs to an organization with a stated purpose of hating victim, it's very subjective. In a post I wrote last year which caused quite a debate in the comments, I examined a situation everyone assumed was a hate crime -- the gruesome murder of a man who performed dressed as a woman. The more I looked at it, the less clear it became:

What I've never been able to understand is what classifying a murder as a hate crime is supposed to do. Is murder plus hate worse than murder without hate? Interestingly, in California at least, murder for financial gain is taken more seriously than murders in the heat of passion, although the conduct here would certainly fall into several other "special circumstances" categories.

If there's the death penalty for murder, what can be added by way of punishment? This man's murderer should get the death penalty, period.

It may be that the murderer killed Corrales in a rage after discovering that he wasn't a woman. That is certainly no defense to a murder charge, but does it make it any worse than if Corrales had been killed, say, for refusing to have sex? Suppose Corrales had actually been a woman, and been murdered. Why isn't that a hate crime? And if it is, how does it change anything?

Certainly, if Corrales was mutilated in this heinously gruesome manner, it makes the death penalty even more appropriate. But doesn't murder plus mutilation ratchet this case up into a category worse than mere "hate crime"?

What am I missing? Whether the victim or his murderer were or were not gay? Considering the extreme and depraved level of violence in this murder, I think it's more likely that the murderer himself suffered from an inability to face his own homosexual leanings. A healthy heterosexual male who was not interested in sex would simply have walked away from a homosexual encounter. It's obvious to me from the picture that Mr. Corrales was a man, and I think you'd have to be a moron not to sense that.....

I'm with Sean on this one. I think hate crimes statutes open a huge can of worms. Far from adding a new group to the list, I think the list should be eliminated, and enhancement of sentences should be left up to the trial judges.

Sean does a good job of addressing the idea that an attack on a member of a group is an attack on the group:

Of course, the theory also is that hate crimes hurt the whole group. Here's the Anti-Defamation League:

Hate crimes demand a priority response because of their special emotional and psychological impact on the victim and the victim's community. The damage done by hate crimes cannot be measured solely in terms of physical injury or dollars and cents. Hate crimes may effectively intimidate other members of the victim's community, leaving them feeling isolated, vulnerable and unprotected by the law. By making members of minority communities fearful, angry and suspicious of other groups -- and of the power structure that is supposed to protect them -- these incidents can damage the fabric of our society and fragment communities.

Thinking just in terms of pragmatics, do gays really think it's wise to buy into this? That you can intimidate the whole lot of us by beating up a single gay man on the way home from the clubs? That we see ourselves as outside mainstream social and legal institutions (a.k.a. "the power structure")? And wouldn't the tacking on of gay-specific jail time or fines be likely to make Joe even more resentful of homosexuals than he would if he were just charged with assault?

If the police are responding listlessly to crimes in gay neighborhoods, then residents should be angry; but that doesn't mean that hate crimes provisions are the only possible response. There are neighborhood crime watches, there's the Pink Pistols. Anger can galvanize you into action, not send you into a spiral of fear.

I have to say, I am fascinated by the "high level silence" about the savage and fatal beating of an elderly gay man -- a murder which (as noted previously) at least one blogger blamed on anti-gay conservatives.

I'm not sure what to make of the high level official silence in Democratic Party-dominated Detroit, but I wonder whether it has to do with the fact that the attacker was black, and this might make black Democratic Party identitarian activists uncomfortable. (Too early to tell, but I have noticed that the amount of hate perceived to be involved in hate crimes increases dramatically if the attackers are white, and decreases dramatically if they are not.)

This composite picture of the attacker was published recently in the Advocate. Whoever the attacker is, I hope they catch him, and I hope he gets the death penalty, which does not and should not require any special hate crimes statute.

But the National Gay Task Force knows who is ultimately responsible for the attack on a gay man by the black man in the picture.

Religious conservative white men, that's who!

From the official "Statement by Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force":

"The hatred and loathing that led to the vicious murder of Andrew Anthos only because he was gay is not innate. Instead it is being taught every day by leaders of the so-called Christian right and their political allies who use their vast resources, media networks and affiliated pulpits to blame lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people for all the ills of society. They disguise their bigotry as 'deeply-held religious beliefs.' They cloak themselves in 'family values.'

"For years, Michigan has been subjected to the homophobic rants of Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan, while so many otherwise good and decent people have been silent. Just two years ago, the state endured an ugly campaign, led by Cardinal Adam Maida, to 'protect marriage' by writing anti-gay discrimination into its constitution. Based on that amendment, a three-judge panel of Michigan's court of appeals voted last month to terminate medical insurance coverage for families of LGBT government workers throughout the state.

"It is appalling hypocrisy for these forces to pretend that their venomous words and organizing have no connection to the plague of hate violence against gay people, including the murder of Mr. Anthos.....

Tell you what; if I am wrong, and if Gary Glenn in any way exhorted his radio listeners to do anything even close to resembling bludgeoning elderly gay men to death with metal pipes, I'll apologize to the NLGTF.

But I'll still oppose hate crime legislation, and I think statements like the above which impute guilt to people having no connection whatsoever to the crime suggest that the advocates of the legislation are largely driven by emotion. The criminal should be punished for the murder he committed, and extreme malice he showed speaks for the extreme evil going through his individual head. What some organization thinks about the political ideas that might be going on in his head should not be a factor in considering what is or is not a crime.

Of course, if we look at the broader political picture (and factor in a generous dollop of the Imagine People mindset), even something like self defense, could, under the right circumstances, be considered hate crime. Suppose the elderly (and white) Mr. Anthos had been carrying a gun, and opened fire on his assailant before he could bash his brains in with a pipe. I don't think it is inconceivable that under certain theories (if, say, he was on record as a vocal supporter of the war, and opposed radical Islam, and that his killer belonged to the Nation of Islam) then he might theoretically have been the one chargeable with hate crime.

By injecting identitarian groupthink into the criminal process, hate crime legislation politicizes crime, and invites precisely such political mischief.

UPDATE: I seem to have taken the NGLTF a bit too literally on the subject of Gary Glenn, who I assumed was a radio talk show host. Apparently he is not. Although he makes radio and television appearances, he has no talk show of his own, but is the president of the Michigan AFA, and devotes himself to various issues, mainly opposing things like gay marriage, gay adoption, gay rights ordinances (especially where it comes to transsexuals, and Mitt Romney. He seems to be an anti-gay religious conservative of some prominence in Michigan. But considering he doesn't have any sort of talk show, how on earth is it that the entire state of Michigan has been "subjected to the homophobic rants of Gary Glenn" much less an unidentified murder suspect?

I suspect that the only people who have even heard of him are anti-gay activists, gay activists, and political junkies.

UPDATE: A Jacksonian comments below that hate crime laws are really a move towards "transnational progressivism" -- one of the key concepts of which is this:

The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born.

MORE: Let me see if I can get this straight. According to the Transnational Progressive Identitarians the black man who beat Mr. Anthos to death would become a victim (along with Mr. Anthos) of Gary Glenn and other powerful white conservatives.

Am I right? I hope not.

Will someone please pinch me and wake me up already?

Please. Tell me this is some sick joke and not reality.