That second link only generates this:

Service Unavailable - DNS failure
The server is temporarily unable to service your request. Please try again later.
Reference #11.7f74543.1279041637.59b4b2a

That's odd, it just worked for me.

The concept of hate crimes seems idiotic. Motive is a relevant part of proving a case, of course, but after that who cares why a crime was committed? Murder's murder, rape's rape, mugging's mugging, etc.

There you go making sense Mike.

None of that!

Yup. I see that StageLeft has forgotten that premeditated murder is, as far as the Left, Political Correctness and the Old Media are concerned, somehow worse if the murdered person is gay.

Which is why it's peculiar that a hardcore left-wing blogger would take the line that murder is murder, period.

I wonder if StageLeft therefore logically opposes the whole "hate crimes" law thingy which basically makes it a worse crime, with a harsher penalty, to murder certain folks compared to certain other folks.

Hamilton always has been a bit on the violent side. I suspect that the real reason so many are being logged as "hate crimes" is that you can't even fart at the mall anymore without someone being outraged and yelling "hate crime".

keep up the good work vancouver gay bashers LLLooooLLL. :)

Paukl in calgary

Some "clarification"
// However, later Monday, a spokesperson for the Justice Department told The Canadian Press there is no truth to Ambrose’s statement. //

Not even "and" & "the"?

Gord, you're under arrest for Unlawful Gaseous Expulsion in a Public Place! :-)

When you're dead you're dead so any 'special' designation of that is irrelevant to you. It may serve as a political tool to those that want to exploit it. Personally I find that somewhat disrespectful.
Having seen what happens to a victim that no longer can speak when the promotion starts, it is not something to be remembered for or respected.

Any crime is an act of hatred, therefore, a "hate crime".
How absurd our society has become when not only do you have to explain to idiots that backward tribal customs are wrong but we have to spell it out in crayon in our own criminal code.
When will the average person become important enough to warrant a task force or law?

The legal concept that might be helpful would be to pre-empt "cultural or religious diversity" as a possible mitigating defence in honour killing cases ("this is what we do in our religion, etc").

I suppose by current legal standards, an honour killing is a form of hate crime, since the victims are members of an identifiable group (Muslim women who wish to live a more normal existence than their relatives wish to sanction).

But then this just leads back to the over-riding fallacy of the hate crime concept, which requires that we elevate selected groups of citizens to protected status greater than the status enjoyed by everyone else generally speaking.

Most of us can probably understand the logic of elevating police officers or seniors to a status that requires a stronger punishment for crimes of equal severity, relative to the rest of the population. When we propose to add Muslim women, gays, then presumably later on Liberal campaign workers, people from Belarus, anyone with a Mc or Mac surname, Irish humorists, then we start to create a jig-saw culture where your rights are determined by who you propose to vote for.

There is also the more cynical question of whether our government really wants to end honour killings, or just score some more easy "outrage" points as they seemed to be doing with the Cliff Olson rollback episode. As Cliffy says from Nevergetout City, he's as entitled to a universal benefit as anyone else, or, it ain't universal. The fact that he's an odious scumbag has nothing to do with it. The next group of odious scumbags to be outed might very well be conservative internet forum posters, and I think we all know that this process is in fact well underway from elements of the government in waiting.

As to honour killing, they should have had a much more stringent set of immigration rules that might have stopped aficianados of this barbarism at the border with a fast return home to the cave of origin.

Naw, see, you guys aren't getting it. Premeditated murder is premeditated murder. Unless a WASP male does it. THEN its a hate crime.

Get with the program here!

The first link gave me the creeps. A little warning next time, please, Kate.

Peter O'Donnell There was a Muslim woman on the radio to-day from the link. She stated that only the marital partner can be removed in domestic abuse. They may not be doing the violence. The abused woman needs help but the police are powerless to help due to the law. Women may do the beating but the men do the killing usually.

Canadian Sentinel said: "I wonder if StageLeft therefore logically opposes the whole "hate crimes" law thingy which basically makes it a worse crime, with a harsher penalty, to murder certain folks compared to certain other folks."

Of course not CS, that would be silly. "Hate crime" only applies if its politically advantageous to the Left. It does -not- apply if the principals involved are gay, immigrants, visible minorities, or in certain cases, important unionists or politicians.

For stageleft, a hate crime is when someone he hates does a crime. Otherwise its just a normal crime. All Leftist special cases are meant to apply to white males/Christians only. The Left doesn't care about crime, they care about power.

Here is an excellent article that speaks to this very topic: http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/

Why are we allowing these Women hating cultures even near our shores? I want to puke at certain Politicians hypocrisy. No one cannot tell me they don't know the score.
It brings us all down lower, to an anarchistic level, while making the defaults of our morals of the lowest common denominator. Soon they become part of society if left unchallenged.
Misogynist killing (It what I call so called "Honor" killings) become a norm soon.
That only about the Ladies, not including its cult of death.
JMO

For a crime to carry a heavier or additional punishment based solely on some characteristic of the victim, there is necessarily the implication that having such a characteristic confers a greater value on those who possess it. It introduces codified subjectivity into the process of justice, which should instead ever and always make pain to purge itself of subjectivity.

A victim should possess only one characteristic to warrant the full force of justice on their behalf, and that characteristic is called humanity. Instead we have the glaring paradox of a system that aims to remedy inequality by codifying and institutionalizing inequality. A horse of a different color....

It's murder. Existing laws regarding murder are sufficient. No special laws for 'culturally' motivated murder are required.

"A growing problem in Canada's immigrant communities"

Not really, it appears confined mainly to South Asian and Middle Eastern communities. I don't hear about such murders in Chinese or Latin American communities for example.

Any crime is an act of hatred, therefore, a "hate crime".
Posted by: Osumashi Kinyobe at July 13, 2010 2:54 PM

Well, not really eh? A contract killing usually doesn't involve hatred, nor a bank robbery.

Most of us can probably understand the logic of elevating police officers or seniors to a status that requires a stronger punishment ...
Nope, I don't. A policeman knows the risk and chooses the job most probably out of some kind of personality disorder. If I'm not mistaken, they face risks not statistically higher than that of most other occupations.

Why do people insist on two-tiered humanity?'
The crime is the ACT. So-called hate crimes criminalize thought, not an attractive idea for a liberal democracy.

Me No Dhimmi, if one wanted to stretch such a concept, one could conclude that a man hates another man so much that he kills him or has him killed, ect. Beside the point. as you said, it is the act. Now- when do these acts become so reprehensible against ANYONE?

Well, I don't know. Is it 'Murder' murder, or just murder? I'll have to consult Whoopi to get a grasp of the intracacies. I seem to be strangely walking a path less travelled lately. What the hell's wrong with me??

John Galt said: "It's murder. Existing laws regarding murder are sufficient. No special laws for 'culturally' motivated murder are required."

John, you're still not getting it. Murder is one guy killing some other guy. A White guy kills a non-white and/or gay guy/girl/whatsit, THAT is a hate crime. White people know better, so when they do it, its extra special bad.

Otherwise known as the "soft racism of low expectations", this is a Leftist specialty. Some immigrant kills his daughter for wearing eyeliner, that's a "tragedy". Some white guy kills his daughter for wearing eyeliner, "its an attack on women everywhere!!!"

That's why the newsies still pretend Marc Lepine was a white guy. It lets them keep calling it a "hate crime". If they admit his real name was Gharbi, it screws up their boilerplate and they have to back off the outrage. And hey, how you going to ban guns without outrage?

Isn't it nice that in Montreal they have only one death attributed to hatred, out of 100,000 persons.
It is likely that this would be an anglo-heterosexual male; but you won't read that in any data.

Phantom, your attempt at sarcasm is appreciated, however making it personal by asserting that I'm "not getting it" is just plain rude. Grow up.

My statement is accurate, I 'get it' completely.

If Lieberals want to label some murders as 'hate crimes' then that's just another one of their disconnects from reality; they have lots of 'em.

I believe that clearly proven 1st degree murder [ie. deliberate and premeditated] should get the death penalty.

Speaking of hate crimes, it is agreed I think that anyone, Clerics, clergy, Catholic or Protestant would be, should be, charged for the sexual abuse of children. However, in Switzerland, one of 3 European countries who stayed neutral during Hitler's rampage across Eurasia and north Africa, they feel that Polish/Jewish movie directors need not be sent to the site of their crimes against children. You've probably heard of Roman Polanski, who is famous for a grotesque movie that debased the Christian belief in the Incarnation of the Word.
Of course we must realize that the Swiss control much of the world's banking, and we wouldn't want to upset that fact, would we.

Like the saying goes...you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

Geez Vancouver get your crap together. Us unedumacated rednecks on the praries are the intolerant haters, but it is oh so hard to keep up to your gay bashing since you have far more access to bashable gays.

Nothing new here. Just the Left sticking up as usual for its new favourite minority group, Islam (which boasts the double attraction of being both primarily brown-skinned AND non-Christian).

I'm sure that when the country's become majority Muslim (thanks in part to left-wing support for immigration) and we're all finally under Sharia, the ruling mullahs will remember their friends on the liberal Left with fondness and be extra careful to protect THEIR values.

No, really. I'm sure they will.

So, larben, you'd have a higher opinion of the Swiss if they'd fought on Hitler's side, eh?

Would you do us both a favour, larben? Read the decision of the Swiss court, and come back and explain exactly why they decided not to extradite, and then show me why, as a matter of Swiss law, they were wrong. That's a lot like work, I know, which is why I have no interest in doing it myself. But I know you won't mind because you've proven yourself highly motivated, and if you do this, then you'll actually know what you're talking about, which will make you much more effective in advocating your position.

How about it?

ebt - I worked 10 hours today and I have no intention either, of trying to understand the twisted intricacies of Swiss judicial philosophy. And, my friend, I certainly would have had a higher opinion of them had they fought with the rest of the world against Hitler. Mind that could be difficult when you do the banking for various dictators, drug lords, and other sickos throughout the world. There is no guarantee that this filthy little creep would have been found guilty of his crimes in the U.S., I mean, look at Woody Allen, he got away with grooming that poor young stepdaughter of his for his own warped desires. I've heard all the arguments like,it was 30 years ago, the girl signed a piece of paper stating that she wants charges dropped. And how much was she paid and just who made her judge and jury? Typical European hatred and jealousy of all things American.