Restitutor Orbis

Reuters reported on April 29th that

The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday approved an expansion of federal "hate crime" laws -- an effort that former Republican President George W. Bush had opposed.

On a vote of 249-175, the House passed and sent to the Senate a bill backed by the new Democratic White House to broaden such laws by classifying as "hate crimes" those attacks based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender identity or mental or physical disability.

President Bush had helped derail a similar bill but President Obama came down strongly in favor of this legislation: "I urge members on both sides of the aisle to act on this important civil rights issue by passing this legislation to protect all of our citizens from violent acts of intolerance," Obama said in a statement before the vote.

"Hate crimes motivated by race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, and identity or disability not only injure individual victims, but also terrorize entire segments of our population and tear at our nation's social fabric," House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer said.

- race
- religion
- national origin
- gender
- sexual orientation
- identity
- disability

I fail to see a problem with protecting these groups. Let's look at history for a moment. In this country alone, the Irish were treated like filth ("No Irish need apply") and they were not alone. Nobody was beating up Anglo-Saxons for being Anglo-Saxons. It was the Anglo-Saxons who were beating up Irishmen, blacks, Native Americans and other groups listed above. White Americans do not require special protections under the law, and I say this as a White American.

The law has signally failed to protect minority groups of every type. Yes, the law of the land is supposed to apply to all equally - and technically, it does. But in practice, it does not. We see countless stories here on Digg about small towns in Texas and elsewhere that make it unsafe for blacks and others to even drive down the street. My grandfather was a policeman in Red Wing, Minnesota, back in the 20s and 30s. At that time, if a black man was seen walking down the street, they would pick him up and escort him to the edge of town, a la the film Rambo. Even today, blacks and other minorities walking through white neighborhoods are treated like criminals.

Mexicans are another favorite target, as we see here on Digg on a daily basis. As are homosexuals. As are Muslims or anybody who looks like a Muslim. To my knowledge, it isn't the physically disabled lesbian Muslims who are mistreating "Anglo-Saxons".

Anybody who thinks things are equal now needs to rethink their position. They're not. Right now, things are slanted in favor of the majority white population - especially the white majority MALE population. The people who are complaining about this are the same lower class, uneducated, poor whites living in the south who insist THEY are the real Americans. The problem for them isn't making other groups special in terms of the law. Their problem is that this law takes away THEIR special status they've enjoyed for half a millennium.

Racism? You betcha. And by golly, folks, it's time it ends.