American Heathen®

From contributor Ronald Bruce Meyer

News reports say that just after 5 p.m., on Tuesday, February 10, a 46-year-old white male, upset over improper parking by his neighbors, went to one of their Chapel Hill, NC, apartments and murdered the three people inside. Or, anyway, that’s the way the news media should have reported it. But, journalism being what it is today, never mind the factual narrative: the victims were Muslim, so it must have been a “hate crime.” The suspect described himself in his Facebook profile as a “gun-toting liberal” and an “anti-theist,” who vehemently condemned all forms of religion. And despite neighbors also saying “he hated everyone equally,” but that “He’s argued with a lot of people. Parking was a big issue,” the media went with the “hate crime” angle.

The family and supporters of the victims, not to mention the news media and the FBI, seem to want this triple murder labeled a “hate crime,” because of the religion of its victims—as badly as those who knew the shooter want suppositions about his motivations to be based on his “equal opportunity anger” toward his fellow apartment complex residents for their annoying parking habits.

Because the alleged shooter condemned all religions and claimed membership in an atheist group, pundits are already claiming this is a “wake-up call for atheists” and evidence of a dark side to atheism. Presented most forcefully by staff writer Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig in a Wednesday piece for The New Republic (2/11/15), this charge demands some reply because I have a dog in this fight.

So there you have it: a “hate crime” perpetrated by an atheist. I’m going to grant you the second point and then tell you why the first one troubles me.

Atheists, like me, typically spread their messages via blogging, books, lectures and videos, rather than bullets. But OK, let’s forego the “No True Scotsman” argument—the excuse that religionists use to distance themselves from their co-religionists when they misbehave—and agree, as I do, that the Chapel Hill shooter is a radical, militant atheist. So what? Did his group, “Atheists for Equality,” give him directions to kill Muslims? Did the pope of atheism preach a crusade against Muslims? Do the atheist scriptures contain commands to kill all believers? I’m going out on a limb here, but I think the answer to all these questions is no for atheism: These are actually common characteristics of religions. No popes, no scriptures: The only thing atheists have in common is disbelief in gods.

Now to the problem of “hate crimes.” The Muslim community in the U.S. has been marginalized and victimized in the past, but by no means more than similar communities in other Western countries: recall the Charlie Hebdo attacks, in which nobody even mentioned “hate crime” because the victims were white. You see, a hate crime is a crime motivated by enmity or animus against a protected class—and white, straight males are never a protected class. This means the U.S. Constitution’s “equal protection of the laws” has been tossed under the bus of political correctness—although it appears North Carolina never got the memo: they have no “hate crimes” statute. I predict that the pressure on law enforcement to declare this triple murder a “hate crime” will be unendurable.

I am troubled by the very concept of “hate crimes” (aka bias crimes) and the enhanced penalties they bring. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have “hate crimes” laws. Federal law can be used to punish crimes committed on the basis of a person’s race, religion, nation origin or other group membership—and this was expanded in 2009 to include perceived gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability. So it seems clear that “hate crimes” laws offer preferred protection to certain groups over others.

This troubles me for several reasons.

Designating a crime a “hate crime,” when it is already a punishable crime, gives the government the power to define protected and unprotected classes. It causes groups to feel persecuted by one another. It perverts the law into protecting groups rather than individuals. It fools people into believing our legislators are being tough on crime, when in fact they are manipulating identity politics. What is worse, it transforms violent crimes into thought crimes.

Michigan Democratic Congressman John Conyers, who was House Judiciary Committee Chairman from 2007 to 2011, put it this way, saying “hate crimes” “constitute an assault not against the victim, but against our communities and against the very foundation of Democracy.” But since it is not the victim but the state that prosecutes, isn’t every crime a crime against the community? And if the standard for justice is the thought or motivation behind the act, isn’t every crime a hate crime?

I know there appears to be this magic bullet that will kill all my arguments against “hate crimes” laws: what about the different degrees of murder? There has always been a difference in punishment between pre-meditated murder and random killing, even if the victim ends up dead in either case. But the traditional levels of culpability are (1) negligent, (2) reckless, (3) knowing and (4) purposeful. These categories describe the level of legal guilt for a crime, not the thought behind the crime.

This is the most troubling consequence of “hate crimes” laws: they trouble the concept of free speech: They lead inevitably to groups applying to have their critics silenced; that is, they lead to “hate speech” laws. This is especially true of certain Christian groups in the U.S. who believe, despite their overwhelming majority, that they are being persecuted when they see their privileged position threatened by equality. How is religious tolerance advanced by making crimes against one religious adherent more serious than crimes against another? And do we really want our government reaching into our minds when meting out punishment? Really? I think Westerners tried that once before: it was called the Dark Ages.

Sure, the punishment should fit the crime, but don’t we Americans trust our own legal system? Sure, the Chapel Hill murderer should be punished for his crime—for his crime, not for his thought. “Hate crimes” laws make us believe, and the news media to report, that our fellow citizens cannot be trusted with freedom of thought.

That’s why I’m having trouble getting my head around how treating one group better than another group can make us all equal. George Orwell warned against making certain words mean their exact opposite in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). But he said it explicitly four years earlier in Animal Farm (1945): “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Consider this: If those three Muslim students had been murdered by other Muslims, would it still have been a “hate crime”?

Three young people were murdered in Chapel Hill, NC recently.  They were college students and muslim. The killer is openly Atheist and anti-theist. The victims’ families, in their understandable grief, are calling the murders a “hate crime”, a trumped-up, politically correct charge that takes an already heinous crime and attempts to amplify it. In this case, they are trying to turn Atheism and anti-theism into the motivation for the crime.  But, the facts tell a different story.

The Facts

First, the killer is known to have a history of anger issues regarding the parking situation in the complex where he resides. Secondly, someone at the complex called for a meeting to discuss the man’s attitude and demeanor over the parking issue. The killer complained a lot about parking and had many cars towed away. When asked if she thought the murders had anything to do with religion, Samantha Maness, a resident of the complex was quoted on News & Observer as saying he showed “equal opportunity anger”. Third, and not surprisingly, the killer’s Facebook page contains posts critical of religion. But there’s nothing that would indicate a propensity to commit violent acts against religious people. He writes of christianity, “If you plan to be enjoying heaven while multitudes are tortured … then you are as much a sociopath as the god that you worship,” and he describes religion in general as, “the world’s most successful pyramid scam.”

The Fallacies

This case is still unfolding as I write. There will be more to come I’m sure. What is evident right now is that this crime was indeed motivated by hate. It was hatred of people parking where the killer felt they shouldn’t be parking. And, even if this Atheist/anti-theist had been motivated by hate for religion, or religious people, this crime would be no more criminally vile than it is.

I’ve written about “hate crimes” before. And so has my good friend and blog contributor, Ronald Bruce Meyer (aka John Mill). “Hate Crime” is a fallacy. It’s a wave of the politically correct magic wand, creating a mind crime out of forethought to elevate the real crime to monumental status. It’s about trying to establish preferential treatment for a particular group in the eyes of the law, and/or an effort to silence criticism of that group. In this case, the victims happen to be muslim. But, even though muslims have been discriminated against in this country to one degree or another… To call this a “hate crime” is simply pandering to the politically correct. It’s murder. Plain and simple. Good people (by all accounts) were murdered by a guy who just happens to be Atheist/anti-theist, and whose real problem is anger management. Consider this… What group of people are best suited for media medallions and special treatment in the eyes of the law in order to soothe the cries of persecution by criticism, or to clear the conscience of those who feel perpetually guilty for everything: “Hate Crime” against muslims or “Hate Crime” against people who illegally park? Which one gets your attention? What reads better? What sells television and radio ad time better?

Silence!

In light of this terrible tragedy, the talk has inevitably turned to freedom of speech and the right to express ideas and opinions. In this case, it’s an opportunity for the religious to try to suppress and/or silence non-believers. The religious have always taken the position that criticism, mockery, satire, or anything that shows their religion in a less-than-flattering light, should be off-limits. Now, a murderer, who happens to be Atheist/anti-theist and is extremely critical of religion, has become religion’s poster-child for what they think a non-believer is. Immoral. Murderous. Evil. They will put anyone who criticizes them on parade, and point straight to this heinous crime and say. “See! I told you they were evil!” But, they really need to be careful about that. Their hypocrisy will always reveal their lies.

Passing The Buck

I’ve written about crimes committed by christians and muslims on this blog in the past. The one thing I have repeatedly stressed is that both religions make use of an unwritten, but tried and true, excuse for crimes committed by the faithful in their gods’ name. “They’re really not a true ________________”   Fill in the blank with christian or muslim and all is forgotten. It’s an excuse that absolves the particular religion from all manner of crimes and atrocities, even though a lot of these crimes and atrocities are written directives in their holy books. They are quick to pass the buck. Interestingly, a christian or muslim is probably reading this right now and is frothing at the mouth, waiting for me to use their excuse for this atrocious crime. Well, the buck stops with… The killer who happens to be a non-believer. Unlike christianity or islam, Atheism doesn’t have a holy book with directives to commit murder. Atheism doesn’t have a supreme deity. And when someone who happens to be a non-believer commits a crime they, and they alone, are responsible for their actions and must bear the consequences. Atheism has nothing to apologize for when it comes to these murders. Atheism is simply a lack of belief.

So where’s my moral compass on this tragedy? If you don’t already know by now…

From contributor Ronald Bruce Meyer

No, Really: All Evidence to the Contrary

Years ago, when I was teaching public speaking to community college students, I started an impromptu debate on the topic of free speech. It was easy to get a student to take the “pro” side; nobody was willing to argue the “con,” so I did. What I said was, “Freedom of speech is the freedom to lie; to defame; to libel; to slander; to vilify; to offend; to blaspheme. My free speech allows me to make you uncomfortable. Do you really want to allow that?”

Like many Americans who hold dear their First Amendment, I was horrified at the events of last Wednesday in Paris. On 7 January 2015, two gunmen opened fire inside the offices of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing twelve, including staff cartoonists Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier), Cabu, Honoré, Tignous and Wolinski, and wounding another eleven. That the gunmen were French Muslims seemed somehow relevant to the news media—although, the day before, the religion of the bomber at the Colorado NAACP headquarters was never mentioned in news reports—and also that during the attack, they shouted “Allahu akbar” (الله أكبر “God is great” in Arabic) and “the Prophet is avenged”—making clear their motive, if not their political constituency. To a female visitor at Charlie Hebdo, one of the two brothers said, “I’m not killing you because you are a woman and we don’t kill women but you have to convert to Islam, read the Qu’ran and wear a veil”—demonstrating, perhaps, that adherents of patriarchal religions, even when they have a political point to make, when it comes to subjugating women, just can’t help themselves.

(To avoid making celebrities of sociopaths, I withhold the attackers’ names and photographs, demonstrating one of the duties that accompanies free speech rights which is often remiss in the sensation-seeking mainstream news.)

Now, if you cannot recall the last time a bearded, yarmulke-wearing Jewish group shot up a publication espousing the “blood libel” or reprinting the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or the massive Catholic violence a generation ago, following the display of Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” image, you could be forgiven: nothing of the kind ever happened. And the mainstream media would not label it terrorism, anyway, just as the word was missing in the description of the Colorado attack. (See my note below)

A massive protest in Paris last Sunday, attended by many world leaders—except for the leaders of one country with an actual First Amendment—numbered over a million. The slogan “Je Suis Charlie” (“I Am Charlie”) entered the popular imagination, along with the image of a pencil. French President François Hollande, like most politicians showing no fear in expressing the obvious, described the worst terrorist attack on French soil in half a century as one “of the most extreme barbarity.” Free speech rights was on everyone’s mind, everyone’s lips. Support for Charlie Hebdo, which lampoons all religions, not just Islam, seemed to be strong by Sunday.

But is it deep? More to the point, was this support for free speech rights, one of the foundational principles of modern liberal democracies, for which centuries of conflicts have been fought and oceans of blood have been spilled—was it sincere or just for show? One wonders.

One wonders when, as Jonathan Turley pointed out in a Washington Post op-ed the day after the attack, “France’s true free-speech threat is from the government. It’s not terrorists but the nation’s restrictive laws on speech.” Turley went on, “Indeed, if the French want to memorialize those killed at Charlie Hebdo, they could start by rescinding their laws criminalizing speech that insults, defames or incites hatred, discrimination or violence on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, sex or sexual orientation. These laws have been used to harass the satirical newspaper and threaten its staff for years.”

Indeed, you will find among the world leaders who stood arm in arm in support of Charlie Hebdo (in what was later revealed to be a staged photo), and others of the so-called liberal West, to be full of the same hypocrisy: Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says, “There are far too many countries where news and content providers constantly face a very special and formidable form of censorship, one exercised in the name of religion or even God.” In the bastions of free speech it is still possible to run afoul of the law for “defamation of religion” in France, Great Britain, Spain, Russia (remember Pussy Riot?), Ukraine and India. Italy and Greece still have a blasphemy law on the books. In Germany and Turkey it is still possible to get arrested for defamation of religion and blasphemy. Palestine showed up at the rally, but in Israel’s neighbor you can not only get arrested for defamation of religion and blasphemy, but also for apostasy. In Jordan, any of those crimes can bring a death sentence.

In Israel, there is no penalty for free speech when it comes to religion—so long as you are not Palestinian. The same goes for the USA—so long as you are not exposing government corruption.

The Heckler’s Veto
I have a friend who never tires of reminding me, “Hypocrisy always reveals the lie.” And so in the cradle of Western freedoms, even in the country of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, if you offend god, you have offended the law. And if you make a joke at the expense of the creator of the universe, the law laughs last. It is as if god, who is marketed as all-powerful, is too weak to defend himself. “We can definitely talk about hypocrisy here,” said the campaign coordinator for La Quadrature du Net, a Paris-based Internet rights group. Adrienne Charmet goes on, “In the past days, we have seen a lot of people condemned for putting out words, no matter how condemnable those words, and receiving sentences that seem quite exaggerated. … this crackdown on freedom of speech is a betrayal of last Sunday’s march.” As the French may say, Quelle ironique!

Worse, in the worst tradition of the patriarchal religions (which would be pretty much all religions), and not unlike those who see rape victims as getting what they deserve if they don’t dress or behave precisely as the patriarchs wish, it seems some would lay the blame for the murders at Charlie Hebdo at the feet of the cartoonists themselves. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League declared that the victims brought the attack upon themselves by intentionally insulting Muslims—essentially saying, and not without a wink to the Catholics who long for the day of the auto-da-fé, that you reap what you sow. Though self-serving in the brain of Bill Donohue, who yearns to punish those who insult Catholicism with impunity, and whose sentiment was echoed by Pope Francis himself, his idea is indistinguishable from the heckler’s veto: the legal theory that free speech can be curtailed by the government if reaction to that speech might be violent.

The problem with that theory, and with Donohue’s, and with hate speech laws and laws against defamation of religion, is the same: as The Economist put it three days after the attack (1/10/2015), “Nothing can be done with a pencil or a keyboard that warrants a reprisal with a Kalashnikov”—and nothing can change the fact that speakers, including cartoonists, are exercising natural rights, but that legal and extra-legal attacks on speakers are suppressing those rights. Western democracies take note, because free speech—as the masses on Sunday seemed to say, but their leaders seem not to understand—is the foundation of every other liberty: It is, or should be, Job #1 of any government-of-the-people to protect the people from attacks on ideas, not from the ideas themselves. As I tried to point out to my students so many years ago, nobody has the right to be unoffended by speech: if you have to promise not to make anybody uncomfortable with your words or your drawings, there is no free speech.

And, anyway, how exactly would a politically correct political cartoon look?

* Less Than 2 Percent Of Terrorist Attacks In The E.U. Are Religiously Motivated, writes ThinkProgress.