Perhaps the award for 1999’s Most Orwellian Word should go to the word “hate.” The recent push for “hate crimes” legislation is a brazen step toward the completion of an American police state. The creation of “hate crimes” signals the end of free speech and the beginning of a dark new era. In this new era, laws will become not instruments to secure the rights of all but weapons to be used by rulers to control the population.
Under current proposed “hate crimes” bills, a violent crime committed anywhere in the United States can become a federal crime if the victim is homosexual, nonwhite or female. Whether to designate a crime as a “hate crime” is of course determined at the whimsy of governing officials. Such a “hate” designation elevates the severity of a crime, such that, for example, the death penalty might be mandated where it otherwise would not. This is absurd on the surface, but it will not be the last we hear of “hate crimes.”
Now consider this: Recent federal laws prevent so-called domestic abusers–even misdemeanor offenders–from owning firearms. Thus a shouting match by a young couple which draws a police citation could result in that couple being forbidden to ever own a gun. Such laws now enable the feds to treat small infractions as an excuse to strip someone of fundamental rights. To treat them like felons, in other words. This is made possible by loading up phrases like “domestic violence” with cultural baggage so that the bulk of the population will shrug off any concern for the rights of the individual involved. No wife beater ought to have a gun anyway, right?
Here’s the twist: Democrats in Congress now routinely accuse Republicans of “hate,” such as when Republicans recently blocked the nomination of a Clinton appointee (Ronnie Lee White) who happened to be black. Now when the same word on one hand justifies a federal death penalty but on the other hand is hurled lazily across the floor of a “great deliberative body,” it is easy to foresee a future when “hate” crimes become an end in themselves. That is, when “hate” is used to control people by causing them to fear speaking their minds. “Hate” would then become a thought crime–the equivalent of what the Soviets dictators would have called “crimes against the state.”
Prediction: As “hate” becomes more and more a label to be feared–much like “racist” or “anti-Semite”–expect to see the scope of “hate” crimes expanded. Anyone who questions the actions of the New World Order’s leaders will find himself designated a “hater” and will see his rights stripped, much like today’s “domestic abusers.” After all, who could argue with keeping weapons out of the hands of “haters”?