Regarding the Philadelphia beating death I posted about yesterday, in today's news I see that four more suspects have been arrested:

During questioning yesterday, the four suspects offered much the same story as the one given by another Gratz High teen who was arrested shortly after the March 26 assault: They were just fooling around and never intended to kill Conroy, just sucker-punch him.

None of the teens accepted responsibility for the initial blow that knocked Conroy to the ground or admitted delivering any fatal punches or kicks as he pleaded for help. They had gone after Conroy on a whim, police said, and were trying to do a "body drop," that is to knock him out with one blow.

However, I don't think much will happen to these "children," and I'm inclined to agree with commenter Bob Thompson, who said this:

Now here is how it is. In the old days, according to Lee Harris, since it was known by anyone who had a developed sense of understanding of man's natural tendency toward self-assertion, that someone must have the power to curb and check unacceptably aggressive natural tendencies. That someone is the chosen ruler, in our case the elected officials and appointed judiciary.

That chosen ruler must be able to govern even the most ungovernable and the only power that can do this is the power of life and death. As we have gotten softer and softer in our penalties for capital crimes, the criminals have gotten more assertive and aggressive.

The left has been the greatest moving force for softer treatment for serious offenders. Now the left is also behind 'hate crime' legislation so that they can continue to soften the penalties except for those crimes committed against one of their favored groups by individuals not in the favored group. Of course, there's not much behavior that liberals hate so they think these laws will mostly affect the wingnuts.

I have disliked the notion of 'hate crime laws' since I first heard of it. Has the constitutionality of this type of differentiation been tested? It seems to me a real stretch to apply different penalties to different people for essentially the same criminal acts depending only on what was in their mind motivating them.

Hate crime legislation thus appears to offer the hope of justice for people who are lucky enough to belong to one of the victim classes (and who can be depended upon to vote for the people who gave them "justice").

What these voters miss is that the people offering special justice in the form of hate crime legislation are the very ones who otherwise advocate being softer on crime, and who generally portray criminals as victims.

Undermine the system of justice only to later offer it back piecemeal?

From a Machiavellian standpoint, it makes perfect sense.

It's as if they're playing a game along the lines of "the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away." What I can't figure out is why anyone is fooled.

In my darker moments, I'm tempted to think that there's a large portion of the population who are quite comfortable being serfs.

Hmmm...

I've been reminded lately of the importance of avoiding cynical thoughts.

But the problem is, this hate crime shit is in fact a deeply cynical (if not evil) process.

So how am I to avoid having cynical thoughts?