BB, I agree entirely with the writer's point of view on this. I have always regarded "hate" legislation as what he alludes to when he says,

"The real purpose of hate-crime laws is to reassure politically significant groups -- blacks, Hispanics, Jews, gays, etc. -- that someone cares about them and takes their fears seriously. That's nice. It does not change the fact, though, that what's being punished is thought or speech."

Right. I am opposed to such legislation, because it is fascist in intent. It's an attempt to enforce thought control on an entire population through fear. What you should charge people for is their actual crimes of commission (rape, murder, fraud, slander, robbery, assault, property damage, blackmail, traffic violations, etc)...NOT what they think and NOT for their expressed opinions, regardless of how unpopular their opinions are.

Every fascist and dictatorial regime yearns to silence all those who step outside the neatly drawn boundaries of the specific thoughts and opinions which the regime supports and espouses. Our society has been moving steadily in that direction under the guise of what is termed "liberalism", but it isn't really liberalism at all. It's fascism posing as liberalism.

Genuine and true liberalism does not suppress thought, it encourages it. It does not suppress freedom of speech and free expression of opinion, it encourages them. It does not say what opinions are legal or allowable or acceptable and what aren't, it allows all opinions. It does not punish people for breaking conventional ranks and being different from the sanctioned line of a ruling majority. It does not practice thought control.

Regimes which have practiced thought control very vigorously are regimes such as the Nazis, the Fascists in Italy and Spain, the present Iranian regime, the North Korean regime, the Communists under Stalin, Mao, and others, the Inquisition, indeed all dictatorships or fascist power structures. And they all did it supposedly for the "greater good", and with the most zealous righteousness. Our present "liberal" milieu in the West has largely been duped into supporting legal initiatives in the direction of thought control. In doing so, they are falling into a trap that they apparently don't see or appreciate. They are becoming what they thought they were fighting against.

It wouldn't be the first time that has happened by any means. It happens whenever a people's righteous zeal outstrips their awareness of someone else's right to express himself freely and to BE who he really is...without fear. That someone does not have to belong to a "visible minority" in order to need protection of his civil rights. EVERYONE in a free society needs his civil rights protected...not just those in the "politically significant groups (such as) -- blacks, Hispanics, Jews, gays, etc."

If a ruling order wishes to gradually exacerbate festering divisions and fears that exist between various sectors in society in order to provoke incidents which will eventually allow the government to bring down ever more draconian laws in the name of "national security"....then what better way to do it than to make some people in the society "more equal" than others? And that is what the present social order is doing. It's pandering to certain groups and demonizing others. This, I think, is either a deliberate strategem to "divide and conquer" the public more effectively...or it's the result of a generally stupid attitude that is getting seriously out of hand and has no idea what it's really doing to society.