Why? These hate crime laws are worthless and they are never even applied fairly. A black man would never be convicted of a hate crime against a white. These laws are unfair and don't need to exist.Judge Wapner said:
Right on X!xpanda said:
A good post on how capitalism ameliorates racism.
Posted by: HmkPoker
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=5385766&page=0&vc=#Post5385766
People, like everything else, carry variable levels of worth and importance that are relative to the individual valuing them. Most people place a very high value on the life of their children, that is, the needs of their children get greater priority to them than the needs of other people's children. This is obvious, and the reasons are rooted in evolution; species have more reproductive success when they are incentivized to protect their young than when they aren't (excluding other variables). After that, the tendency of human preference tends toward lovers, siblings, parents, and close friends in whatever order the person may have.
We prioritize strangers too. Human beings naturally display preference for members of like kind. A strong patriotic American will care more about the life of a fellow American than a Canadian or German or Palestinian. A Christian will care more about issues affecting a fellow Christian than those of a non-Christian (and even more so if the denomination is the same). White people tend care more about white people than non-whites, as do blacks of blacks vs. non blacks.
This preference is also dependant on how important the grouping mechanism is to them. For example, I care more about a person if I know he is a fellow libertarian than if I know he is a fellow Realtor, but someone with more interest in real estate than politics will prioritize differently. This is a natural trend that will surface for any interest.
It is also natural (although not necessarily right or healthy) for a human to have a negative preference, or a preference toward harm for someone of sufficiently different nature than the individual's "like kind" criteria. Thus we have animosity between Jews and Palestinians, whites and minorities, liberals and conservatives, different generations, social classes, competing businesses, whatever. There is an excellent evolutionary reason for this, as members of other species are not going to contribute to reproductive success of another species, but members of the same species will. As such, aggression towards non-species members is a very useful biological mechanism, as it both allows them to secure food from the bodies of prey, and maintain control of scarce resources in an area from predators. Primitive human tribes were seldom peaceful or diplomatic. Lacking the communication skills or resources necessary to engage competing tribes in trade, strong "us and them" paradigms were necessary for their survival. While it is no longer economically necessary to do this, this emotional tendency still exists. It is especially strong with race, as race is a very obvious means of grouping and identification. Irrational negative biases against blacks, jews, hispanics and others continue to occur, and have negative personal and economic effects.
So how do we end this? One could suggest that we could help end this through a forced exposure to people of unlike kind, as exposure to some form of diversity is necessary for the individual to de-group them as enemies. (I, for example, was a little homophobic before I went to college, but I ended up making friends with a lot of gay people and now don't see gay people as having any different worth or value than straight people...either that or whatever difference there is is too small to be perceptible, that's probably the case.) But exposure doesn't always have this effect. My experiences were positive, but the same experiences can very well have a negative effect. If someone's exposure to certain members of a particular group is highly unfavorable, there is a high probability that they will attribute it to members of the entire group. (If I had only met some very unfavorable gay people, I’d probably be homophobic) A person with a natural bias against members of a group of unlike kind cannot emotionally overcome these biases with unfavorable exposures to them. They must have favorable experiences. That's how human emotional conditioning works.
All attempts by government to forcibly fix this problem fail inevitably. Government is thoroughly incapable of fixing this problem because in its attempt to create equality in areas that it designates, it must create inequality in others, and always to the anger of those involved in the proposed conditioning7. Affirmative action can grant higher positions to some (usually while compromising overall productivity, because businesses naturally want extend their positions to the most qualified), but it cannot give minorities an equal level of value to caucasians as other caucasians. It works to the contrary. Well-qualified white people do not like it when their job goes to a less qualified minority. That's an exposure coupled with directly associated negative emotion. That helps create racism.
Proposals to redistribute wealth based on ethnic groups can not work. Taking money from a demographic that statistically produces more (white males) and giving to a demographic that statistically has less (black females) is a negative experience for white males. People don't like having their money stolen. It associates theft with black women. The natural increase of hostility as a result makes white males inclined to behave negatively toward the out-group, thus doing the same for black females. Feedback.
There is also no reason for the government to intervene. Why? Because as human beings evolve and develop newer and better ways of doing things, they become increasingly rational. Trade is mutually beneficial and a far more effective method of securing resources than fighting over them. There are no significant differences in the productive abilities between races (with the exceptions of results of cultural norms). As such, a black person has the same ability to produce widgits as a white person (assuming that the value of the widgit is not highly influenced by the person who made it in the consumer's mind). People like to make trades, and have strong preference in whom they trade with, and in the absence of other variables they prefer to make them with people who treat them well. Common sense; unfriendly sales reps are going to get less business than affable sales reps.
But the sales rep doesn't want to make less money. He wants to make more money. If friendliness is necessary to securing valued wealth as it is in his position, then capitalism has created a personal incentive for him to act in a manner toward his customers that they like! The tendency to rationally work toward personal goals creates situations where people will naturally associate others with positive affects. Thus, if a white person who is not exposed to many black people has a positive experience with a black person, he is going to emotionally associate his positive affect with black people. Sufficient positive exposures as described make a person less inclined to hate people.
The tendency toward positive-sum economic behaviors naturally makes other people more favorable, as they become providers and not threats. (The exception would be economic competitors, but that just forces people to provide more and be nicer to people, and it's only felt by those rational enough to secure the resources to own the business in the first place, so who cares?) It is natural for human beings to form a collective in-group. Civilization and technology facilitate that we have more and better exposure to other people. No longer will a does a person never venture more than 20 miles from his birthplace, nor do you even have to leave your room to make contact with someone. The health benefits from genetic diversity create rational incentives for cross-breeding. Rational secularism is a superior, homogenous belief structure that is rising. Civilized countries don't have to kill each other for resources anymore; trade is simply better.
The government cannot change the emotional opinions of out-groups through legislation any more than it can stop people's desires to do drugs through anti-drug policies. Government can not stop a white person from hating blacks or vice-versa; it can only create situations that promote it. Natural human incentives will make the problem go away on its own.
The Short Version: Racist hatred is caused by unfavorable exposure to a small representative of the hated group. Favorable encounters increase the individual's liking of the group. This is a function of emotional conditioning which was necessary to our evolution.
Capitalism, which requires parties to act for mutual benefit if they want to secure more valued resources, provides personal incentives for individuals to create favorable encounters with other people. Government situations, like affirmative action, reinforce negative exposures, it inevitably helps identify minorities as undeserving theives. Man's trend toward rationality and self-benefit naturally develop against racist hatred, not toward it. Because of that, the problem will go away more effectively on its own rather than through forced intervention.
