[curryst]

This is likely unpopular, but I don't care for any of the laws regarding hate crimes. I do think hate crimes are awful, but I can't find a good reason why someone shooting their neighbor because of their race/religion/gender/etc is worse than shooting them because they don't like the color their neighbor painted their house or because they slept with their SO or whatever it may be.

I do get that racially motivated crimes can create fear among whatever demographic has been targeted. On the other hand, that sounds like terrorism, which we have laws prohibiting.

At the end of the day, hate crime laws end up looking like they're toeing the line of "thought crimes" to me. Robbing a store is bad, but if you decide to rob a store run by Latinx people because you (probably wrongly) blame them for losing your job is worse. But if you blame WalMart for losing your job and decide to rob a WalMart to get back at them, that's somehow better in the eyes of the law.

I just don't see the need to delineate. I'm totally open to changing that view though; someone else (or everyone else) may have found a way to reason about that that I haven't though of.

I'm generally opposed to these kinds of "under these circumstances, it's worse" laws though. I don't like DUI laws for the same reason. We already have reckless operation laws in most states. If someone kills another person through their reckless driving, I doubt their loved ones care whether it was because of alcohol, lack of sleep or playing on a phone. Why is swerving between lanes because you're drunk terrible, but swerving between lanes because you haven't slept in 2 days is just a slap on the wrist? Ticket/arrest people based on the threat they pose to others, not based on the threat they pose multiplied by some "we don't like that" factor.