THE FOLLY OF HATE-CRIME LAWS

I rarely agree with Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, but this is a commentary with which I can agree. Writing on the murder of Holocaust Museum security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns by James von Brunn, an apparent consummate bigot:

The real purpose of hate-crime laws is to reassure politically significant groups -- blacks, Hispanics, Jews, gays, etc. -- that someone cares about them and takes their fears seriously. That's nice. It does not change the fact, though, that what's being punished is thought or speech.

Finally - an admission by a man of the Left that "hate crime" laws serve no purpose beyond political pandering.

[Stephen Tyrone] Johns is dead no matter what [James] von Brunn believes. The penalty for murder is severe, so it's not as if the crime is not being punished.

Exactly.

The added "late hit" of a hate crime is without any real consequence, except as a precedent for the punishment of belief or speech. Slippery slopes are supposedly all around us, I know, but this one is the real McCoy.

Yes. And exactly the reason "hate crime" should be regulated to a historical footnote.