That’s a very, very strong statement! Are you sure you intend it to be that strong?

Fair point, allow me to rephrase:
I have not yet seen an argument that makes any moral or intellectual sense (to me) in favour of hate crime legislation, further, I have examples that do not fall under current or proposed hate crime legislation that fulfill every possible criteria of a ‘hate crime’ and yet would not be punished as such. I also have examples of how such legislation could actually cause semi-intelligent criminals to commit crimes against groups supposedly protected under this legislation to avoid harsher sentences. And, finally, I am intellectually, morally and constitutionally against any legislation that treats compus mentus adults differently.

I am more than happy to hear of an argument that changes my opinion as I hate to hold wrong views.

I noticed a couple of comments picking up on the Sarah Conner issue and saying crimes that target any specific group should be punished as hate crimes. How about someone just has a passionate dislike for one person, or one family. They beat up the kids, smash the windows, etc. Even after they get caught they come out and do it again. Is that also a hate crime?

How many crimes do you have to commit to make it a hate crime? I have heard of someone who was giving out a real beating to someone (bad person, more prison sounds good to me) literally jumping on their head and a bystander heard them call their victim queer. He got a much longer sentence due to the fact he called his victim queer than he would have for the assault. Later turned out it wasn’t a gay-bash, they had been arguing over something earlier in the bar and that was what the fight was about. And the victim wasn’t gay. And it was a first offence.

Judging from the punctuation in these last few vandal efforts, I can’t tell if there is much intelligence there.

It’s not enough that statistically all the targets are in group X, or else every serial crime in a highly ethnically homogenous area would be a hate crime.

Random crimes do not express a targeted threat. What a hate crime accomplishes is to make people feel unsafe not just for being in a certain place at a certain time, but to make them feel unsafe for being who they are. In other words, it’s psychological warfare we’re talking about here.

So, your example with the serial rapist who only targets white people, pointedly and clearly as a threat to that group: yeah, it should warrant harsher punishment, because that crime would have a terrorizing effect on white people. (Though as jemand points out, adding additional punishment onto a conviction for serial rape is mostly just a rhetorical flourish).

There is no justification for hate crime legislation that makes moral or intellectual sense.

That’s a very, very strong statement! Are you sure you intend it to be that strong?

For example, I don’t believe in the supernatural, but I don’t say “There is no argument for belief in the supernatural that makes sense”. Instead I say “I haven’t yet heard an argument for the supernatural that I found convincing.” Being willing to change your mind given contrary evidence is important; pre-emptively dismissing the possibility of any such evidence isn’t very rigorous pursuit of the truth.

hate crime laws are not about picking particular groups to be protected

Erm, yes they are.

There is no justification for hate crime legislation that makes moral or intellectual sense.

If the crime is terrorising the community then random crime terrorises more people.

If the crime is terrorising a small subset of the community then why are only pre-determined subsets allowed? What if I chose to attack every Sarah Conner I could find? I’d be selecting a small subset of the community and absolutely terrorising that subset but that would not be a hate crime. Where’s the logic?

If the crime is terrorising a group that have traditionally been targets so what? How does that make the actual crime that has been committed better or worse?

Also, and this is one of my favourites, if you are a rapist, but you’re a racist rapist and only attack white women, is that a hate crime? And if so, then it would be better for you to rape a black woman once in a while so you get a lesser sentence, how is that protecting the black community?

As someone who has personally experienced that threat, do you disagree with the law taking special notice of it and trying to reduce it?

And, as has been pointed out above, hate crime laws are not about picking particular groups to be protected, nor of automatically adding additional punishment onto crimes against certain groups. If we’re going to discuss hate crime laws, let’s at least talk about what they actually are.