XPost: triangle.politics, alt.politics.socialism.democratic, school.general   
   XPost: ucb.politics   
   From: lying-pricks@msnbc.com   
      
   Edwin Hubbel Chapin once said, "Through every rift of discovery   
   some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls, as a   
   golden link into the chain of order."   
      
   If ever there was a "seeming anomaly" in the chain to enforce   
   the orthodoxy of political correctness, it's Vester Lee   
   Flanagan, also known as reporter Bryce Williams.   
      
   Flanagan murdered Alison Parker and Adam Ward on live television   
   while they were reporting on a feature story for WDBJ in   
   Virginia. Parker was the reporter and Ward was the cameraman.   
      
   The incident might be chocked up as nothing more than another   
   tragic situation of workplace violence except that Flanagan said   
   in a 23 page letter to ABC News the killings were out of his   
   anger over "racial discrimination, sexual harassment and   
   bullying at work." Although his claims of inequity were proven   
   to be unsubstantiated, he said he had been "attacked for being a   
   gay, black man." He also claimed the Charleston church shooting   
   in June ought to have provoked a race war and the incident was   
   the inspiration for his dastardly act.   
      
   So if Flanagan had not turned the gun on himself and taken his   
   own life, but lived, one can only wonder if the two murders he   
   committed would have been deemed a hate crime. Parker and Ward   
   were both white and straight. Flanagan was black and gay.   
      
   So what happens when a black gay man guns down two white   
   straight people expressing his motives are connected to issues   
   of race and homosexuality?   
      
   Ben Shapiro, Senior Editor-At-Large for Breitbart News and a New   
   York Times bestselling author, noted in a column about the   
   incident:   
      
   "Had a white straight man killed a black gay man, released a   
   first person tape of the shooting, and then unleashed a   
   manifesto about being victimized by affirmative action and anti-   
   religious bigotry from homosexuals, the media would never stop   
   covering the story. They'd be eager to report that shooter's   
   motives with all the attendant politically correct hullaballoo   
   about the racism and homophobia of the United States more   
   broadly. We would hear about white supremacy. We would hear   
   excoriations of the Republican presidential candidates for their   
   failures to stand with the Black Lives Matter movement — and   
   their opposition to same-sex marriage …"   
      
   Indeed, we would. And, Shapiro goes on to rightly argue that the   
   media is more likely to depict Flanagan simply as an "outlier"   
   and focus the conversation on the supposed need for gun control.   
      
   But what about a question that goes to the heart of the matter —   
   would Flanagan's crime be deemed a hate crime?   
      
   It would seem to fit the category.   
      
   The federal government defines a hate crime as "any criminal   
   offense … which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the   
   offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual   
   orientation, or ethnicity/national origin."   
      
   Flanagan's rage vented on Parker and Ward seemingly wasn't just   
   against them for personal offenses, but as representatives of   
   his perceived white, straight, anti-gay oppressors. Whether they   
   were burning a cross on a lawn or carrying out a lynching, the   
   Ku Klux Klan used the same twisted rationale against blacks and   
   gays.   
      
   Flanagan's maniacal act also seems to fit the various   
   justifications given for hate crime laws. Hate crime laws carry   
   tougher penalties because they are deemed to be more brutal in   
   nature, allegedly do more psychological harm, and, as a bias   
   motivated crime, hurt innocent third parties. In other words,   
   the crime not only targets a certain victim, but is directed at   
   a group. Over and again, via news footage, the public witnessed   
   an excessively brutal act of wanton murder by a man filled with   
   hate who meant to do psychological damage to millions, while   
   striking out against all people who would discriminate on the   
   basis of race or sexuality.   
      
   Still, had Flanagan not committed suicide, it's highly unlikely   
   he would have been charged with a hate crime. Even though others   
   have been charged with the same for less than what he did — some   
   for just using derogatory language. Why? Because hate crime laws   
   are not about equal justice under the law as our Constitution   
   demands. They are, instead, about tipping the scales in favor of   
   people from protected groups and not others.   
      
   Violent crime should be punished under the same standard no   
   matter the victim.   
      
   In his book, 10 Truths About Hate Crime Laws, John Aman writes:   
      
   "[U]nder the hate crimes regime, the law no longer regards 'man   
   as man,' but as a member of a group. Equal justice gives way to   
   a system of 'preferential justice,' in which, as novelist George   
   Orwell put it, 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more   
   equal than others.'"   
      
   Aman also contends:   
      
   "Hate crime statutes codify legal distinctions based on race,   
   ethnicity, national origin, gender, and sexual behavior. They   
   alert all Americans to these distinct identities and reinforce,   
   magnify, and fix in place group conflict by using the law to   
   make them legitimate. The media reinforces these divisions by   
   showering attention on crimes purported to be motivated by   
   prejudice…Based on differences in race, gender, religion, or   
   sexual conduct, such factionalism is moving our society toward   
   the 'disuniting of America.' Some are calling this a 'new   
   tribalism.'"   
      
   Such laws work to create, as Aman asserts, "a perverse incentive   
   to seek victimhood, since victimization enhances a group's   
   'moral claim on the larger society,' and, therefore, it   
   leverages political power." Quoting Shelby Steele, Aman adds,   
   "The power to be found in victimization, like any power is   
   intoxicating and can lend itself to the creation of a new class   
   of super-victims who can feel the pea of victimization under   
   twenty mattresses.'"   
      
   News reports indicate, as Shapiro wrote, that Flanagan   
   "marinated in his self-appointed victimhood status." He sought   
   to use it as power over the places where he worked, but   
   officials dismissed his complaints. He was constantly looking   
   for people to say something to which he might take offense.   
      
   Flanagan is not alone in such behavior. Except for the act of   
   murder, his worldview either to a greater or lesser degree is   
   becoming a national phenomenon.   
      
   Is this what we've come to in this country? Whatever happened to   
   that greater, former set of ideas about personal responsibility   
   and impartial justice, and not identity politics, that were our   
   compass?   
      
   The point here is hate crime laws may have been enacted with the   
   intention of protecting weaker and minority groups, but such   
   laws and the politics surrounding them, have instead worked to   
   enhance separatism, fueling and magnifying prejudices and   
   antagonisms. They have exacerbated feelings of victimization,   
   even to the point of violence.   
      
   If Flanagan's fury is suggestive of anything, it has a   
   connection to this. Moreover, Flanagan is the anomaly indicative   
   of our country's need of God's grace in Christ to cleanse away   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)