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Thought Crimes With Different Names
Over the past week, left-wing critics have pointed an accusing finger at the Right, asking why Charleston killer Dylann Roof hasn’t been called a terrorist. Some have gone on to argue that “terrorism” is simply the term we use to describe any mass murder committed by a Muslim, whereas other mass murders — particularly those committed by non-Muslim whites — are likely to be attributed to mental illness.
While that last point is as mendacious as it is factually incorrect — James Holmes, Adam Lanza, and Jared Lee Loughner really were crazy and Aaron Alexis is not exactly white — the question of why Roof isn’t considered a terrorist has a point. His crimes certainly seem to meet the everyday sense of the word, as well as the legal definition.
Fortunately for our liberal friends, news came yesterday that Roof is being charged with committing a federal hate crime. As Reason’s Jacob Sullum points out, this is an utterly superfluous and symbolic act. Murder — if you didn’t realize — is actually quite illegal in South Carolina and its widely expected that prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Roof (as well they should).
Curiously absent from this debate was any question of why Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — who was officially sentenced to death this past week — isn’t also considered a hate criminal. If Roof’s targeting of African-Americans in order to precipitate a race war qualifies, so should Tsarnaev’s choice of target and confessed motivation, right?
Interestingly, Tsarnaev was never charged with terrorism. More interestingly yet, most of the charges he was found guilty of — including many of the capital offenses — could just as easily (and unnecessarily) have applied to Roof.
The sad fact is that “terrorism” and “hate crime” — in both their colloquial and legal definitions — both basically mean “ideologically-motivated mass-murder” (NB: Epstein & Yoo think there is a substantive difference, but it seems very subjective). Indeed, if you look at the language the federal government uses to define them, it’s hard to imagine any circumstance where someone guilty of the one could be innocent of the other.
By any measure, both Roof and Tsarnaev are terrorists and hate criminals. More importantly, however, they are murderers and South Carolina and Massachusetts are quite capable of handling on their own (though I prefer South Carolina’s approach).
To the extent each is part of a larger movement bent on death and mayhem, we have means to legally and (in the latter case) militarily deal with them. The labels don’t matter.
Published in Law
If Roof is found guilty of murder and a hate crime, can he be executed twice?
If only.
Sure, he’s a terrorist. The Left doesn’t have an insight there, and I don’t see anyone on the right making even the most rhetorical defense of Roof.
I do disagree with folks here who keep calling him a “deranged” killer, or claiming that we’ll never know why he committed his “senseless” acts. He’s not crazy, like some of the others; he’s a racist mass murderer who is articulate enough to tell us exactly why he did it. Al Sharpton got about as many people killed, without ever puling the trigger himself. We don’t let Sharpton off the hook by calling him “crazy”; he knew what he was doing. So did Roof.
One other thing: Because the Right is so often accused of racism, many people here have reflexively had a habit of mocking the word like so: “raaaacist!” or “Waaaaycist”. This is stupid, as if real racism doesn’t exist. Even as a joke it’s old.
Wasn’t Tsarnaev tried by the Feds?
If Roof were to be officially classified as a “terrorist”, would that not make it an act of war, thereby making it the duty of the US Department of Homeland Security and/or the US Department of Defense to use extraordinary force and other war measures to root out and eliminate all of Roof’s kind?
AFAIK, if mass killings by citizens of the US on US soil are criminal acts rather than acts of war, then they probably shouldn’t be called “terrorism”, regardless of the justification behind the killings.
Personally, I disagree. I reserve the word “terrorism” for acts of war which deliberately target civilians, perpetrated by foreign agents or in rare cases by domestic revolutionary organizations.
Well, personally, I often disagree with how governments define and redefine language to further their own interests. Watering down the word “terrorism” to justify increased domestic martial powers could arguably qualify.
/cont…
Also, on the one hand there’s the legal definition of a word and on the other hand there’s the colloquial definition of a word.
I can sympathize with those who colloquially refer to any mass killer as a terrorist, but that doesn’t mean I think the CIA should round up all their acquaintances for a round of enhanced interrogation.
When words like “terrorism” are watered down, it gives the state increased license to exceed its proper authority.
I figured the reason the left began shouting “terrorist!” before those nine bodies were even cold, was one of those ham-fisted attempts to defend Muslim mass murderers by creating an equivalence.
It was a dare. It was basically a challenge to conservatives: “if you don’t call this terrorism, then you’re a racist.”
Silly Misthio. Words don’t mean anything anymore. Especially if they’re laws.
From the relevant code:
Again, it’s a case of words being way too watered down. If the word “racist” hadn’t become so watered down by the innumerable frivolous and fraudulent attacts on comedians, innocuous social media posts, names of sports teams, etc, then there would be no need to call Roof a “terrorist”, because calling him a racist would be enough.
But no, since pretty much everyone is now a racist, the word is no longer enough for someone like Roof, so escalation to “terrorist” is required.
This makes me wonder, if the word “terrorist” keeps being similarly watered down, how long will it take before we need a new word for the real terrorists?
(The same question could be asked about words like “sex offender” or “rapist”. It takes so little to be guilty of “rape culture” or to get on a sex offender registry, will we need new words to describe the real criminals?)
Yes. If you look at the actual charges against him though, they’re basically just murder charges (with a few of them referring specifically to the bombs, but others refer to the handgun they used to murder Officer Collier).
Does the code provide a legal definition for “agent”?
The dictionary offers several different definitions, including:
.
If the code does not clarify what is meant by “agent” then I’d suggest it’s dangerously vague.
I’m baffled and frustrated when, after some atrocity like this occurs, the very first question people start asking is whether it will be classified as a hate crime. The very concept troubles me deeply, for two reasons.
The first is, as your title points out, this is indistinguishable from Orwell’s thoughtcrime. In our society, it’s supposed to be legal to hold any opinion you want; only one’s actions should be punishable. To treat a crime differently because of the perpetrator’s beliefs is, quite simply, to punish belief itself. That should frighten anyone.
The second reason is that, by classifying hate crimes as particularly evil, we imply that the same action committed for different reasons is less evil. Do we really want to suggest that, had Roof’s motives been different, gunning down a roomful of innocent churchgoers would have been more acceptable?
What he did is what he did.
But he was not charged with murder under Massachusetts law. Someone must not have thought the Commonwealth capable of dealing with its murderers.
What seems to have happened is that the Feds were eager for an easy win on terrorism, while Massachusetts was happy to simply pass the buck while (as a distant side matter) getting a pass on discussing the death penalty.
Massachusetts is thoroughly capable of dealing with murderers, though — unjustly IMHO — insists on keeping all of them alive.
Well, it’s your prerogative to disagree, but you’re wrong and the feds are right about this. The original “terrorism” as coined by Burke, was French, and it was domestic. Since then, most terrorist groups have been domestic criminals rather than foreigners. The first guy to label himself a terrorist was a Russian Nihilist who wanted to start a class war by committing murder. He was arguably less successful in this than Roof, since the only person he ended up personally killing was an ally who disagreed with him on tactical grounds, but arguably more successful since associates of his killed a Tsar and a chief of police. Plus, there was, ultimately, a successful revolution.
In the US, Anarchists and Klansmen have been the instigators of most terrorist attacks, with Weathermen like Leftists coming somewhere behind. In none of those cases was it the duty of the DoD to suspend Posse Comitatus, although in the case of the Klan the army was sometimes used. When the Klan threat could be dealt with without the use of the Army, though, it was. In this instance, it seems clear to me that Roof could be apprehended with the use of South Carolina resources alone, so there would be no need for the Feds.
I think that there are some who want to claim terrorism as the exclusive province of Muslims, and the left has some examples of people who really wanted to deny that Roof was a terrorist (and/ or that he was white, and/ or that he was racist). Those all seem like legitimate grievances to me. When they’re biased in the same way, we rightly call them out on it.
Thankfully, we’ve mostly acted promptly and responsibly on this one, so going after FOX hosts and the like for relatively petty thought crimes (and then Perry a little when Perry misspoke using exactly the sort of mistake that the left was already frothing about this) is the best that they can do. I think politically, this incident probably works out to our benefit, on balance, but that doesn’t mean that the “terrorist” debate isn’t a minor skirmish that we lost out on.
To me the distinction of “terrorist” is closer to: were the victims random, for example whoever was at school that day, or were they chosen for who they were? We were rightly angered when officials refused to call a gunman at LA Airport who shot up the El Al counter a terrorist, merely because he wasn’t under the control or direction of a foreign power. It was pretty clear to anyone over the age of four that he chose a place where Jews were likely to be. Same with Roof. He was trying to influence future behavior, to send the message, “Beware, you are not safe from us anywhere”.
By contrast, the guy who did the Colorado theater massacre wasn’t trying to discourage sinners from going to see immoral movies. The school shooters aren’t making a statement about people who cooperate with education.
I’m not equipped to dispute James of England’s history of the term terrorism, but it seems to me that the only remaining value in the terms “hate crime” and “terrorism” are utilitarian.
Every hate crime is a crime even without the hate element as described in the statutes. The utility of a hate crime designation is to effect a more severe punishments for offenses based on the motive for the crime. While the motive for a crime does matter, I think a special designation for hate crimes is irrational. It’s sufficient to have three categories for motive – justified, mitigating circumstances, and everything else. Hate crimes would all fall into the last category. Regardless of my personal opinion, when an offender faces the death penalty without any consideration of a racist motive, the hate crime designation is moot.
Similarly, the violent acts of terrorist are also crimes, even without any terrorist designation. The utility of terrorist designations is to justify extra-legal action against people outside the country, and to prosecute their domestic supporters. While statute allows for it, I think the use of terrorist legislation against violent domestic offenders is prosecutorial overreach and should be discouraged. If I’m correct, and I expect to be told I’m not, then from a legal perspective a terrorist designation should require a foreign component.
I can say that this wasn’t the case legally or historically. In contemporary colloquial use, though, do you think that McVeigh wasn’t a terrorist? How about the anarchists that used to plague us? The Weathermen? Did Palin misspeak when she said that Obama was pallin’ around with terrorists?