Congress is trying to pass another hate crime law. President Bush will veto it if it gets to him, but I expect it will be put into law as soon as a Democrat is elected President. These laws don't make much sense to me. This is a "feel good" law of the type that liberals like. It is favored by people who run on emotion rather than logic.

I remember the James Byrd case. Byrd's daughter made an ad for Democrat's criticizing Bush for opposing hate crime legislation. As Bush said, two of Byrd's killers were quickly sentenced to death, and the other was sentenced to life in prison. What more can be done to them? One aspect of the law that disturbs me is that as a straight white male I'm not valued as much as one of the protected class. If someone assaults or kills me it's not as important to bring my attacker to justice as if I were in the protected class? I thought we were all supposed to be equal under the law. There seems to be a thought that people (presumably right-wing white people) are actively targeting the "protected classes." But in the cases I have read about recently of crimes against homosexuals and Muslims, it turned out the allegations were false. The people want to be victims. It appears that nowadays everyone wants to be part of a "victim class." That does not bode well for our society in my opinion.