CBS says it's OK to "punch a Nazi"

[Dill]

(04-19-2019, 09:17 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Actually, we do.  Have you ever heard of hate crime laws?  That is why I chose to mention previously that I feel that a vigilante is no better than a racist.  Why?  Both are acting upon emotion and sentiment, rather than logic and rationale.

I have heard of hate crime laws.  But as I understand them, they don't punish people for just hating.  You can hate all you want, and say it, without punishment.

If you want to be punished for a hate crime, you still have to assault someone or deface property--i.e., violate the actual boundaries of others freedom.

So far there are no laws against emotion and sentiment.  They are not bad in themselves.  Nazis may feel saddened at Hitler's death and react emotionally to it, sentimentalizing Nazi Germany under the Third Reich. Others may feel saddened at the death of millions of Jews and sentimentalize life in the Jewish ghettos of Eastern Europe before WWII.   If this sentiment motivates a Jew to act, as in punch a Nazi, I cannot ethically equate that with a Nazi motivated to act, as in punch a Jew, because both are "acting upon emotion and sentiment, rather than logic and rationale." 

In our Western, Judeo-Hellenic tradition, hating people who tried to exterminate your people is not ethically the same as wanting to exterminate people because you hate them.

But to maintain civil order and rule of law, a Jew in the the U.S. today who punches a Nazi for shouting hate must receive the same penalty as a Nazi who punches a Jew for being a Jew.