What I meant: I don't want to "legislate away" emotions as in, I wouldn't simply declare certain thoughts and feelings to be illegal. Using legislation as part of an overall plan to change society's view on something, however, is a notion I'm comfortable with.
I mean that specific, different penalties for "hate crimes" should be used to identify what caused the illegal behavior, and steps should then be taken to correct that cause.
Consider the DUI example. A person is pulled over for DUI, sent to court, loses his license for a couple of months. He gets it back - and what do you suppose happens? Was that punishment enough to convince him not to drink and drive? Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it. This is why DUI offenders ought to also be remanded to some form of alcohol therapy. The problem isn't that the guy is a sociopath, incapable of following laws, it's (probably) that he has an issue with alcohol. If you attack the cause (ie, get him some help with his drinking problem) then when he gets his license back he's less likely to do it again.
I believe that "hate crimes" should work in a similar fashion. The crime itself should be punished according to how severe it was - hitting a man with a bat gets you more time than with a fist, etc. However, what caused that outburst should be taken into consideration - and if it is a hate crime, the perpetrator should undergo some (once again, useful) form of diversity training to attempt to correct the problem.
Don't think of it as added punishment (though the perpetrator no doubt will). Think of it as obligatory social rehabilitation - or, if you prefer simpler language, trying to fix the problem.
The point still applies - peoples' social norms and values can, have, and will override the law. That's why revolutions happen. Well, that and starvation.
AA speaks to socio-economic problems, not just sociological ones.
That said, I've come to believe that AA in particular would no longer have a purpose if real time, money, and effort was put into cleaning up urban areas, especially urban schools. The issue that AA attempts to address - that African American and Hispanic students in particular have less of a chance of getting into college because of the poorer means they (on average) come from - would diminish greatly if two goals could be reached: 1) improve schools in the inner cities (and by that I mean school property, school resources, and school teachers), and 2) convince kids from those minority groups that they can succeed through education. I'd have to go digging through a pile of statistics in order to comment on whether or not kids are starting to get more invested in their educations or not - I can say that an alarming percentage of kids still aren't, but it's whether or not that number is improving that I don't know.
Side note: For a moment I thought you were talking about Alcoholics Anonymous and was very confused.
I've toyed with that idea myself. Of course, there will always be people who cry foul - and with this one, you can bet that someone will soon be talking about how the "new" Affirmative Action promotes lethargy - rewarding the poor and encouraging them not to try and improve their socio-economic standing. Of course, that's BS - why would one from a low socio-economic standing, for whom all things probably relate back to survival (the survival instinct grows stronger the farther down the food chain one goes, after all), be attempting to go to college, other than to raise his/her socio-economic standing?
I think I'm talking to myself, I apologize.
And I look forward to being back full-time. I've missed this place.
I can only hope. This is exactly the type of discourse I like to see on the forum - more of it would only be welcome.
