As many will know I am opposed to the whole concept of legislation targetted at ‘hate crimes’ and ‘hate speech’. My main reasoning for this viewpoint with regards to speech is that these laws eviscerate any concept of freedom of speech. These laws are also capricious and inequitable as it’s all too easy for a statement by person ‘A’ to be seen as ‘insulting’ or ‘offensive’ by person ‘B’ but not by person ‘C’. What a person is offended or insulted by is very very personal. I for example am offended by stuff that other people may find innocuous.
My argument against the concept of ‘hate crimes’ legislation in general is Biblical. Western law and especially the laws of the nations of the Anglosphere, are based firmly on Judeo-Christian foundations, even though adherence to Christianity or Judaism as faiths is not as mainstream as it once was in the Anglosphere nations. The Bible states in Deuteronomy 16:19 that a person should not pervert justice or show partiality and in my view the entirety of ‘hate crimes’ legislation goes against that Biblical edict. This is because hate crime law makes some persons complaints have more weight than others and gives some people advantages in law that others would find it impossible to have.
The policing of ‘hate crimes’ is also a waste of police resources that could be spent on deterring or investigating crimes that bother the average citizen or subject far more than someone being called a nasty name. Money spent on investigating a minor graffiti or street insult matter as a ‘hate crime’ is money that cannot also be spent on investigating a burglary or a robbery or anti social behaviour or some other real crime of the sort that bothers many more people.
There is also a growing propensity for ‘hate crimes’ to be either faked by those wishing to engage in attention seeking behaviour and also for stuff that is plainly not motivated by a dislike of a particular group to be mistakenly categorised as such. A good example of the latter occurred in Birmingham in the English Midlands earlier this month. The West Midlands Police shoved who knows how much precious police resources at investigating an incident where it was alleged a Chinese takeaway’s sign that read ‘Golden Boat’ was amended to read ‘De Bat’ allegedly in reference to the claim that Coronavirus came from Chinese people allegedly eating bats.
However much to the embarrassment of West Midlands Police, it turns out that the changes to the sign were nothing to do with any actual vandalism, but were instead the fortuitous result of a strong wind blowing certain letters off of the sign and leaving others behind. When passers by reported the changed sign to the police, the West Mercia constabulary immediately went into hate crime investigation mode and issued an appeal for information about it. Who knows how much this investigation cost, probably a lot, but it most certainly diverted funds and resources away from genuine crime. The police didn’t even think to contact the owner of the takeaway as a first resort. If they had done then the owner would have told the police that the wind was the culprit not some anti-Chinese vandal. It appears the police went into action at the instigation of a local ‘Karen’ on Facebook but didn’t even bother to contact the alleged ‘victim’.
The Birmingham Live website said:
Police hunting racist yobs who vandalised a Chinese takeaway sign so it read ‘bat’ were left red-faced when they discovered the missing letters had fallen off in the WIND.
A probe was launched after residents spotted the letters G,O,L,N and O had been removed from the Golden Boat’s bright red sign so it now said ‘DE BAT’.
West Midlands Police logged it as a hate crime and immediately launched an appeal in a bid to catch the culprits.
But they were left with egg on their face when it emerged the missing letters had actually fallen down in a recent storm.
A spokesperson for the Golden Boat in Kingstanding said: “The wind blew it down. The letters came down by themselves.
“It’s weird but it’s certainly not a crime, it’s just a coincidence.
“We were very surprised to hear the police were investigating it as a hate crime. I can’t see them arresting the wind.
The image that this story brings up in my head of police officers trying to arrest an ‘offensive’ gust of strong wind reminds me of the story of the Wise Men of Gotham about the inhabitants of a Nottinghamshire village who all feigned imbecility in order to avoid the costs and disruption of a royal visit from King John. The difference between the Wise Men of Gotham and West Midlands Police is that the eponymous villagers only feigned imbecility, with West Midlands Police’s ‘hate crimes’ unit, we are dealing with actual imbecility.
This is yet another ‘hate crime’ that wasn’t. We can add this to others similar cases such as that of Jussie Smollett in the USA or the Muslim girl, also from Birmingham, who made a false claim that her hijab was pulled off in an alleged ‘Islamophobic’ attack. In both these cases the law came or is coming after those who made false allegations, but I doubt very much that West Midlands Police will suffer much for wasting who knows how much public money on such a non crime and non offender.
It is said that the demand for ‘racism’ and ‘prejudice’ made by various ‘hate crimes’ legal activists and the police seriously outstrips the supply of actual racism and prejudice. I must say the story of police running round like idiots literally chasing the wind really does illustrate the truth of the claim that there is really not enough actual prejudice and racism to keep these ‘hate crime’ units in business. Maybe West Midlands Police should after this incident consider closing down their ‘hate crime’ unit and putting the officers seconded to it or employed by it, back onto real and needed police work?
