XPost: alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead, alt.motorcycle.kawasaki.gpz, al 
 .culture.hawaii 
 XPost: sbay.news.config 
 From: lying-pricks@msnbc.com 
  
 Edwin Hubbel Chapin once said, "Through every rift of discovery 
 some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls, as a 
 golden link into the chain of order." 
  
 If ever there was a "seeming anomaly" in the chain to enforce 
 the orthodoxy of political correctness, it's Vester Lee 
 Flanagan, also known as reporter Bryce Williams. 
  
 Flanagan murdered Alison Parker and Adam Ward on live television 
 while they were reporting on a feature story for WDBJ in 
 Virginia. Parker was the reporter and Ward was the cameraman. 
  
 The incident might be chocked up as nothing more than another 
 tragic situation of workplace violence except that Flanagan said 
 in a 23 page letter to ABC News the killings were out of his 
 anger over "racial discrimination, sexual harassment and 
 bullying at work." Although his claims of inequity were proven 
 to be unsubstantiated, he said he had been "attacked for being a 
 gay, black man." He also claimed the Charleston church shooting 
 in June ought to have provoked a race war and the incident was 
 the inspiration for his dastardly act. 
  
 So if Flanagan had not turned the gun on himself and taken his 
 own life, but lived, one can only wonder if the two murders he 
 committed would have been deemed a hate crime. Parker and Ward 
 were both white and straight. Flanagan was black and gay. 
  
 So what happens when a black gay man guns down two white 
 straight people expressing his motives are connected to issues 
 of race and homosexuality? 
  
 Ben Shapiro, Senior Editor-At-Large for Breitbart News and a New 
 York Times bestselling author, noted in a column about the 
 incident: 
  
 "Had a white straight man killed a black gay man, released a 
 first person tape of the shooting, and then unleashed a 
 manifesto about being victimized by affirmative action and anti- 
 religious bigotry from homosexuals, the media would never stop 
 covering the story. They'd be eager to report that shooter's 
 motives with all the attendant politically correct hullaballoo 
 about the racism and homophobia of the United States more 
 broadly. We would hear about white supremacy. We would hear 
 excoriations of the Republican presidential candidates for their 
 failures to stand with the Black Lives Matter movement € and 
 their opposition to same-sex marriage €" 
  
 Indeed, we would. And, Shapiro goes on to rightly argue that the 
 media is more likely to depict Flanagan simply as an "outlier" 
 and focus the conversation on the supposed need for gun control. 
  
 But what about a question that goes to the heart of the matter € 
 would Flanagan's crime be deemed a hate crime? 
  
 It would seem to fit the category. 
  
 The federal government defines a hate crime as "any criminal 
 offense € which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the 
 offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual 
 orientation, or ethnicity/national origin." 
  
 Flanagan's rage vented on Parker and Ward seemingly wasn't just 
 against them for personal offenses, but as representatives of 
 his perceived white, straight, anti-gay oppressors. Whether they 
 were burning a cross on a lawn or carrying out a lynching, the 
 Ku Klux Klan used the same twisted rationale against blacks and 
 gays. 
  
 Flanagan's maniacal act also seems to fit the various 
 justifications given for hate crime laws. Hate crime laws carry 
 tougher penalties because they are deemed to be more brutal in 
 nature, allegedly do more psychological harm, and, as a bias 
 motivated crime, hurt innocent third parties. In other words, 
 the crime not only targets a certain victim, but is directed at 
 a group. Over and again, via news footage, the public witnessed 
 an excessively brutal act of wanton murder by a man filled with 
 hate who meant to do psychological damage to millions, while 
 striking out against all people who would discriminate on the 
 basis of race or sexuality. 
  
 Still, had Flanagan not committed suicide, it's highly unlikely 
 he would have been charged with a hate crime. Even though others 
 have been charged with the same for less than what he did € some 
 for just using derogatory language. Why? Because hate crime laws 
 are not about equal justice under the law as our Constitution 
 demands. They are, instead, about tipping the scales in favor of 
 people from protected groups and not others. 
  
 Violent crime should be punished under the same standard no 
 matter the victim. 
  
 In his book, 10 Truths About Hate Crime Laws, John Aman writes: 
  
 "[U]nder the hate crimes regime, the law no longer regards 'man 
 as man,' but as a member of a group. Equal justice gives way to 
 a system of 'preferential justice,' in which, as novelist George 
 Orwell put it, 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more 
 equal than others.'" 
  
 Aman also contends: 
  
 "Hate crime statutes codify legal distinctions based on race, 
 ethnicity, national origin, gender, and sexual behavior. They 
 alert all Americans to these distinct identities and reinforce, 
 magnify, and fix in place group conflict by using the law to 
 make them legitimate. The media reinforces these divisions by 
 showering attention on crimes purported to be motivated by 
 prejudice€Based on differences in race, gender, religion, or 
 sexual conduct, such factionalism is moving our society toward 
 the 'disuniting of America.' Some are calling this a 'new 
 tribalism.'" 
  
 Such laws work to create, as Aman asserts, "a perverse incentive 
 to seek victimhood, since victimization enhances a group's 
 'moral claim on the larger society,' and, therefore, it 
 leverages political power." Quoting Shelby Steele, Aman adds, 
 "The power to be found in victimization, like any power is 
 intoxicating and can lend itself to the creation of a new class 
 of super-victims who can feel the pea of victimization under 
 twenty mattresses.'" 
  
 News reports indicate, as Shapiro wrote, that Flanagan 
 "marinated in his self-appointed victimhood status." He sought 
 to use it as power over the places where he worked, but 
 officials dismissed his complaints. He was constantly looking 
 for people to say something to which he might take offense. 
  
 Flanagan is not alone in such behavior. Except for the act of 
 murder, his worldview either to a greater or lesser degree is 
 becoming a national phenomenon. 
  
 Is this what we've come to in this country? Whatever happened to 
 that greater, former set of ideas about personal responsibility 
 and impartial justice, and not identity politics, that were our 
 compass? 
  
 The point here is hate crime laws may have been enacted with the 
 intention of protecting weaker and minority groups, but such 
 laws and the politics surrounding them, have instead worked to 
 enhance separatism, fueling and magnifying prejudices and 
 antagonisms. They have exacerbated feelings of victimization, 
 even to the point of violence. 
  
  
 [continued in next message] 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)