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Breaking: Vehicle Plows into Pedestrians in London
The first report from the BBC:
A vehicle has struck pedestrians “leaving a number of casualties” in north London, police said. One person has been arrested following the incident on Seven Sisters Road in Finsbury Park.
Officers were called at 12.20 BST and are at the scene with other emergency services, the Metropolitan Police said. A London Ambulance Service spokesman said: “We have sent a number of resources to an incident in Seven Sisters Road.”
Early reports indicate that the vehicle struck people leaving the Finsbury Park mosque, which has been implicated in several terror incidents. It remains to be seen if this an attack of retribution.
Update from the BBC (6:50 pm ET):
Published in GeneralThe Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said a van “intentionally” ran over worshippers. Many of the victims are believed to have just left evening prayers after breaking the Ramadan fast.
One eyewitness who lives in a flat on Seven Sisters Road told the BBC she saw people “shouting and screaming”.
“Everyone was shouting ‘a van’s hit people’.
“There was this white van stopped outside Finsbury Park Mosque that seems to have hit people who were coming out of the mosque after prayers finished.”
I agree with you regarding hate crimes, however to muddy the waters a bit, aren’t we charging people based on what they were thinking when we distinguish premediated murder vs. crimes of passion, or manslaughter?
If the defense in this case argues that he didn’t mean to hit anyone, he was just driving and lost control of his van, that would be based on what he was thinking, right? Or if the defense pleads temporary insanity, that would also be based entirely on his metal state at the time. The fact that he was driving the van and X number of people were hit is pretty much incontrovertible, so the entire case hinges on what he was thinking before and during the crash.
Hmm.. the word premeditated would seem to have something to do with the criminal’s mindset since it involves, you know, thinking. And certainly the concept of criminal intent is often important in criminal law, which also seems to have something to do with the criminal’s mindset. Why even the term mens rea has the word mind in it, albeit in Latin. Thus, if you are looking to remove any reference to the criminal’s mindset from the categorization and prosecution of crimes, that is probably a broader reform than you intend. Or maybe not.
I guess I’m not convinced that any particular reason for premeditated murder is any better or worse than any other reason, morally speaking, since no reason is reasonable.
Vs:
Right, which is why I don’t agree with a hate crime qualification simply based on the victim or the perp’s views toward the victim. It has to have broader implications the way terrorism does versus run of the mill crime. I admit to not having a rigorous doctrine on the matter at this point.
There are separate questions of intent, though, and they “why” of it. The old parlance is MMO – Means, Motive, and Opportunity. Hate crimes are tacking on additional penalties for different motives.
Hate crimes make the motives in the 2nd example more punishable than in the first. You go from just proving they had a motive, to making the motive itself another crime.
There are already cases where intent is a crime per se. But in this case, it’s a stretch to say “the motive itself is another crime” — it’s more like an extenuating circumstance, or it shifts the crime into a different category.
Again, I see this as a similar category shift as between standard criminal activity and terrorist activity. The intention in the second case is not only to harm the direct victims (often they are just incidental victims), but also to victimize some class of other people via fear, intimidation, implied threat, etc. It’s a different type of crime.
Jamie’s Straw Man Army
I haven’t seen a blunt ‘kill all Muslims’ thing .
I do recall conversations along the lines of (with artistic license):
‘The only way to deal with jihadis is to kill them’ [Actually arguable.] ‘The majority of Muslims are jihadis – in thought if not yet in deed. Check the Pew poll!’ ‘So we need to…?’ ‘I’m just saying.’
or
‘We really have to deport them.’ ‘Who’s we and who’s them?’ ‘Oh, you know. And it’s not like I’m arguing we should kill them, I’m not a Nazi or anything.’
or
‘Every time there’s a terrorist attack in the West we should bomb a city in the Muslim world. That’d put a stop to them.’ ‘That doesn’t seem to have worked in the past, not to mention there are plenty of terrorist attacks by Muslims in cities in the Muslim world.’ ‘If they don’t understand there’s a price it won’t stop .’ ‘Who is they?’
etc.
Some thoughts on this:
Perception is not perfect and memory is plastic. It’s perfectly possible I hear and remember what I imagine rather than what was actually said or intended.
Fear can make people stupid, and to some degree vicious. This isn’t their fault, it’s a human failing.
I’m used to it, and I sort of expect it here. I may look and (usually) silently judge (bless your heart) but I’m not surprised.
Which links to: I am not a person of the Right. Which means I do not expect the Right to do better, and it doesn’t upset me when the Right behaves badly or rejects me. Sure, sometimes I read a comment and want to take a shower, but I have nothing invested in its source being good or smart or decent.
There are members who are linked to Muslims by marriage or descent or friendship and who are emphatically of the Right. And therefore these things land a little more harshly on their hearts than might be intended.
Understood, though I certainly hope for the Right to do better myself.
I agree with Mark on this but with one understanding: because of the left’s present power in the country we simply should not give them any more tools to use against us. The left isn’t interested in the original intent of any law. They don’t respect the rule of law but instead use our respect for the law and the Constitution against us.
Once upon a time leftwingers were opposed to special penalties for killing cops. I was, too, as it seemed a bad precedent to set up different penalties for different categories of citizens. I figured all lives were equally to be valued. This was before the concept of “hate crime” came along. When that “hate crime” idea came up I remained opposed to different penalties for different categories of citizens, but leftwingers jettisoned their earlier view. Well, maybe they still oppose special penalties for killing cops, not on any principled grounds but because they hate cops.
No it just gives them more latitude with judges and juries. That’s why they want things like this.
The left’s lack of respect for our system wouldn’t matter if they were not in positions of power and influence in the country. The left’s power today is why we can’t have nice things.
So, good discussion but not good for the polity we have today.
You didn’t imagine that one; I remember that exchange. Actually I think it’s been suggested more than once.
When someone posts something like that here shortly after a terrorist attack, I like to think they are just blowing off steam. At least I hope they are, though I sometimes fear they might actually mean it…
I’ve definitely heard this one in conversations in person. It’s hard to know where to begin to respond.
I can’t tell if you’re assigning this view to me, but I have not spoken in favor of changing the severity penalties based on the “category of citizen” of the victim. I think my view was clearly laid out in contrast to this. Just clarifying.
Nope. Hang ’em all.
I think cops are different. The intentional killing of a cop qua cop (that is, not because the SOB is sleeping with your wife) is an attack on society itself. An attack on the concept of ordered society. I think that is a more serious crime.
Oh I totally think they’re blowing off steam.
But it pushes the envelope wrt what is acceptable or not.
Nobody just goes out and kills infidels (or Muslims, or gays, or whatever) without a social and cultural context.
Somebody (some group) has made it an okay, reasonable, understandable thought before this one person makes it an action.
This implies that it’s been tried. It really hasn’t.
Iraq and Afghanistan were something else?
It wasn’t in reference to anyone here on Ricochet.
It gets into dangerous territory, though. In earlier times in the English-speaking world, there were different penalties for patricide and killing of masters than for other murders. That, too, was all about the concept of an ordered society. But we have since replaced that view of society with a more individualistic view in which all lives matter. I think that is mostly a change for the better.
Terrorism fits this description as well. And, I would argue, the conception of hate crimes I described above.
You have a point; for capital crimes there’s no differentiation in the punishment. But what about for non-capital crimes?
I think I agree on terrorism, but I need to think a lot more re hate crime. I did think about that as my finger hovered over the “comment” button, but thought, eh, I think about it more if someone calls me on that. So, thanks. ;-) It feels different to me, but I’ll need to think about why.
This attack is dreadful. I am afraid that we are going to see more crimes like this, with reprisals on both sides.
Fortunately, it does not appear that this is a case of mass murder. It is a case of attempted mass murder, which is a terrible crime. But the reports that I’ve seen indicate that only one person died, and his death may have been unrelated to the attack. Apparently, a group of Muslim men exiting a mosque stopped to help an elderly man who had collapsed at a bus stop. It was this elderly man who died, but police stated that the death may not have been caused by the attack. I take this to mean that his death may have been entirely unrelated, perhaps from something like a a heart attack or a stroke.
This does not in any way excuse the attack, and the perpetrator should be convicted and locked away for a very, very long time.
It is also reported that the Muslim crowd beat up the driver/attacker. I can’t blame them for this. Apparently, the imam of the mosque intervened to stop the beating and have the attacker handed over to the police. Good for him!
Isn’t it surprising, though, that the number of attacks is something in the order of 5,000 (or more) to 1 in relative numbers? I think the western countries are simply filled with amazingly level headed and good people.
Yes. W’s idea was to rebuild dangerous nations into free western-style republics. The suggestions you referenced are about destroying cities to provide a disincentive against terrorism. They didn’t have rebuilding in mind. Just drop some bombs and hope the message gets through.
These kinds of attacks are carried out by people who have no realistic hope of implementing their world view – Iow by relatively small and therefore in democracies powerless minorities.
That’s why the whole point of terrorism by individuals or groups like these is to manipulate responses from the State or from other, larger groups in society.
From the Atlantic:
While extremists do sometimes fight each other directly, they rely on the tool of terrorism to aim their fire at the center of society. The immediate effect is to cut down people who are simply trying to live their lives in peace. The ultimate goal is to destroy the center entirely….
The emerging pattern of reciprocal and escalating violence is a grave threat to free societies, far greater than any threat presented by ISIS alone. If we do not find ways to break the cycle of violence, it will expand, feeding on the very fear and uncertainty it creates, and leading the world into an ever-widening gyre of destruction and instability.