I wouldn’t be so sure about that:

“[Bill Belanger, Erin's father] did not attend jury selection, but said he will attend the trial.

”I’ve always been an advocate of the death penalty. The viciousness, the brutality, these guys ought to be the poster children for the death penalty,” he said.”
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/14/xbox_trial_will_be_moved_in_florida/

I would say this guy is definitely taking the senseless nature of the crime into account when arguing that these guys should get the death penalty. I will also add that the death penalty is never the mandatory punishment for any crime in any state (making the death penalty mandatory is, indeed, unconstitutional). The death penalty is always an optional punishment open to jurors depending on the aggravating circumstances of the crime according to urisdiction.

Loui

Um, wrong. I’m saying we should add extra penalties for crimes committed for particularly heinous reasons or purposes. Why? We have different penalties for different pre-dispositions in a number of crimes. The difference between assault and aggravated assault is the intent to cause injury with reckless diregard to human life. A thief can also be charged with racketeering, an extra punishment tacked on to the initial charge if the crime fits a set of criteria. Hate crime legislation follows the same logic because racial motivated violence has an effect far beyond the individual instance. The beating in this case was apparently a beating with a particularly reprhensible purpose: To punish someone because of their race. To ignore this element of the crime is to send the wrong single to those who commit such crimes about their attitudes and behavior. This is to officially erase any acknowledgement that race was a factor in the crime. And so, while they are punished for their actions, the MOTIVATING FACOTR, behind the action, racial hatred, goes unacknowledged and unpunished. It’s eaxactly like ignoring the jihadist hate speak behind suicide bombings in the Middle East.

And as to Dugger’s idiotic post, yes, if the attacks were racially motivated they should be charged with hate crimes and I would point the finger at the destructive culture of gang life and rhetoric. You have to be a complete fucking idiot to write something like this: “Yet the Las Vegas crime is evidently totally without any influences at all.” A total fucking idiot.

Have you been napping?

One poster here said this.

“Wouldn t have anything at all to do with all the racist, eliminationist rhetoric of the Right w/r/t immigrants, would it?”

Another this

“the real world consequences of extreme right wing rhetoric about immigration that mobilizes metaphors of war and pestilence to describe human beings who only want to feed their families. ”

I mean leftists here are falling all over themselves to blame “the right wing” hate talk, etc for this crime. Yet the Las Vegas crime is evidently totally without any influences at all. It, oh so conveniently for compassionate progressives, just occurred in a g*ddamned vacuum.

Dugger

I love it when Conservatives try to counter arguments by bringing up an unrelated incident and ordering us to comment on it as if it’ll prove anything. It’s like a natural evolution of the strawman.

Then you draw what conclusions from this?

http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4819138

Republicans do it again? Do we make a bunch of broad-swath assumptions here or do progressives need Squealer to get his paint brush and head for the ladder - with a slight revison to the hate crime homily.

Dugger, the person who committed the crime, committed the crime. period.

Whoa. Don’t go making stuff up now. I said no such thing. I said I don’t support hate crimes legislation. How is that the equivalent of denying race played any role in this attack?

I’m merely saying those factors are irrelevant with regard to the punishment they should receive. What you’re saying is, if a similar crime had been committed by two white kids against another kid that was white, that it isn’t as bad because race wasn’t a factor. I showed you how 6 people were brutally murdered because of a video game system. I didn’t see anybody running to declare there should be some extra punishment based on a ’senseless’ factor, since it it was a senseless crime.

That some Blacks can be as brutal and thugish as some Whites.

* Smarmy remark to follow. Usage primarily confined to liberal commenters.

Uh, Frank, care to rejoin the rest of us here on Earth? I oppose unfettered illegal immigration myself. I speculated on a connection between eliminationist rhetoric and violence, not between immigration and violence. Do try to keep up, please.

But, of course, it is Elrod. If someone hit an American Muslim with a bat because they are Muslim, well, we shouldn’t have to think anymore of it than if it was your typical run of the mill assault. Haven’t you been listening to Jay? Crimes don’t happen for reasons and those reasons certainly should never be taken into account when we want figure out how to reduce crime.

So where did they learn to hate Hispanics? Maybe it was from their parents after all. Maybe it was because of the illegal immigration issue in the news. Maybe the whole thing had nothing to do with Hispanics per se, and they just had a problem with the victim for personal reasons. Maybe they are part of a white supremacist gang. Who knows? Historically, a larger atmosphere of intolerance tends to manifest itself in these kinds of acts. It’s not out of the question that the two assailants were inspired, in some way, by the overheated anti-Hispanic rhetoric of the Tancredo crowd. But that’s very speculative at this point. To generalize on the basis of this one incident would be a mistake. If we see an epidemic of anti-Hispanic murders then we can say that something in the current cultural climate encourages this sort of behavior. In fact, there has been a major increase in attacks against American Muslims and Arabs over the last four years, and it’s obviously not a coincidence. But I don’t know that the illegal immigration has spawned this sort of anti-Hispanic violence as well. At least not yet.

When we start hearing people on television, in the mainstream media talk about human beins as “parasites,” or ‘threat to our way life” it is only a matter of time before somethig like this happens. It’s a mutually reinforcing circle, Jay. So I am directly blaming the rhetoric for stoking the hatred and creating the conditions in which this kind of act can occur.

What I find so sad in your whole line of argument is that you would entirely deny that race played any role in this attack, you would dismiss it and erase it even though, as the facts are currently known, the attackers allegedly used racial epithets when they beat this boy nearly to death — alledgedyl for kissing a white girl no less. But that doesn’t matter to you. It means nothing in your book. But when someone in our society shouts racial epithets while beating someone to death or mutilates someone for their socks or their gameboy, that means something. Just like it means something when someone straps a bomb to their chest and kills innocent people in the name of god. But, of course, for you, we aren’t supposed to even consider wonder why or, worse yet, think about what we can do prevent these kinds of events in the future because, hey, they’re all the same. Not a single difference. No reason to talk about racism or radical islam. No reason to even consider these things at all.

Jay, you can’t deal with a problem if you can’t even name it. This looks like a hate crime, Jay. It matters that it may be a hate crime.

In other words, let’s stop all this criticism of the radical Imams or the moderates who refuse to stand up to them. Afterall, it isn’t overheated rhetoric that creates an environment that makes violence acceptable.

Um, sure. The guy on television says that Mexicans constitute an invading army and Dad says, “Fuckin-A Right they are. We ought to do sumptin bout it.” And the kid at his feet never puts two and two together …

And as to your opinion about hate crimes legislation, nice. Socks. That’s the best you could do? I suppose you also agree that we should stop talking about radical jihadist islam whenever we talk about terrorism because you know, bombing someone because they’re infidel and bombing someone because they’re wearing different socks are the same thing. Right? Right Jay?

Racism is taught.

It is taught by Repugs to their Repug offspring.

Uh, no shit Sherlock. The part about Dad refers back to what I said about such things being TAUGHT. Pay attention. Of course, you make the asinine assumption that dear old Dad in this siuation is a conservative or a Republican!

And as to your opinion about hate crimes legislation, nice. Socks. That s the best you could do? I suppose you also agree that we should stop talking about radical jihadist islam whenever we talk about terrorism because you know, bombing someone because they re infidel and bombing someone because they re wearing different socks are the same thing. Right? Right Jay?

Are you stupid on purpose? Or is it accidental? You think the socks analogy was that far off? There was a brutal murder in Deltona, Florida in 2004. 6 people were savagely murdered with baseball bats and knives. Know what for? A freaking Xbox gaming system.

Were there lives worth any more or less than somebody elses?

Again, you’re merely making my point for me. Why? Because in the next house over, another Dad is teaching his kids about the ills of illegal immigration without the racist rhetoric. The teaching is still coming from the parent. Yet, at the beginning of this, you were directly blaming the rhetoric for their actions.

I didn’t dodge your question. It made no sense.

And what’s an integral part of teaching? Reinforcement. The kid hears it from the television and sees it amplified by the dad. The dad rests assured that his hatred is okay because the guy on television is giving him a target for it, an excuse, a rational. The kid thinks it’s okay because his Dad thinks it’s okay because the guy on TV gives them all the reassurrance that everyone thinks it’s okay because, hey, it’s on television, and the radio and the internet etc. etc. It’s a reinforcing environment in which hate finds a home and grows …

And I could practically hear the swoosh of your dodge on my last question. Thanks for playing Jay.