Criminalizing thought

On its way to the USA

[Reprinted from Issues & Views September 24, 2001]

The Wall Street Journal reports on yet more bad news from England:

Coordinated by Scotland Yard's Racial and Violent Crimes Task Force, London's police in a dawn raid arrested 106 for "hate crimes." Ranging from racist death threats to the publication of homophobic tracts, their offenses were purportedly motivated by blind, pig-ignorant prejudice. . . .

Britain's 1986 Public Order Act also criminalized "incitement to racial hatred," a statute that applies to racially defamatory literature, song lyrics, television programs and websites. Attacks on asylum seekers from abroad have led Ireland to contemplate similar legislation.

There are two issues here, though they converge on liberty. The first concerns behavior that is already illegal, for whose bigoted motivation the state levies an additional tariff. Prejudice may be ugly, but it's also not literally a crime--or wasn't. Surely the cornerstone of a free country is the right to think whatever thoughts you like in the privacy of your own insufferable head. After all, it's a cinch to identify what doesn't belong in the following set: burglary, car theft, grievous bodily harm, tax fraud, loathing. The last one might be despicable to many, but government should concern itself with what we do; its our business how we feel.

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