{"id":35079,"date":"2018-01-27T01:00:36","date_gmt":"2018-01-27T06:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=35079"},"modified":"2018-01-07T08:42:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-07T13:42:58","slug":"qotd-hate-laws-and-other-redundant-bits-of-legislation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/01\/27\/qotd-hate-laws-and-other-redundant-bits-of-legislation\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: &#8220;Hate&#8221; laws and other redundant bits of legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>As a customary principle of politics, whether \u201celectoral\u201d or \u201cappointive,\u201d I think it unwise to adjust legislation, or offer to adjust it, in response to behaviour by the criminally insane. This confers too much power on them. Verily, it is a mark of our present social condition that \u201creforms\u201d are guided more and more by the hardest and strangest cases. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The need, specifically, for new \u201chate laws\u201d is zero, at most. Murder has never been an expression of affection, to any individual or group; specific hatreds have always been considered in the interpretation of motives. We have enough crimes already, without inventing redundant ones in accord with the latest fashions. The intention behind them is never exemplary of mental and moral hygiene.<\/p>\n<p>Which points again to the deeper \u201cproblematic\u201d (one tires of the misuse of this word) in politics as practised today. We not only legislate in response to the transient behaviour of the criminally insane. Worse, our legislators, though arguably sane to start with, get in the habit of indulging insanity, even within themselves.<\/p>\n<p>David Warren, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.davidwarrenonline.com\/2016\/06\/14\/orlando\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Orlando&#8221;, <em>Essays in Idleness<\/em><\/a>, 2016-06-14.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a customary principle of politics, whether \u201celectoral\u201d or \u201cappointive,\u201d I think it unwise to adjust legislation, or offer to adjust it, in response to behaviour by the criminally insane. This confers too much power on them. Verily, it is a mark of our present social condition that \u201creforms\u201d are guided more and more by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,28,41],"tags":[343,906,931],"class_list":["post-35079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-media","category-quotations","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-mentalhealth","tag-moralpanic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-97N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35080,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35079\/revisions\/35080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}