Congrats?

[Pancho 44455]

How in the fucking he’ll is something like this just now being passed?

 

[Post Oak 20183]

10 minutes ago, Pancho Negro said:

How in the fucking he’ll is something like this just now being passed?

 

Well there's a certain contingent in this country that still want to lynch people.  So they vote for people who feel the same way.  

[Pancho 44455]

18 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

Maybe I don't get it, but isn't it redundant? Anti-lynching, anti-stabbing, anti-shooting, anti-suffocating are all murder which is already a federal crime? Are we just distinguishing the type of death to make a political/historical point so that a marginalized people feel good about it? If so, sounds good to me and good for them.

The south

trump voters

 

 both are okay with lynching and murdering of minorities 

[hpslugga 4043]

7 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

Well there's a certain contingent in this country that still want to lynch people.  So they vote for people who feel the same way.  

Exactly. This isn't about stopping lynchings. This is about isolating/exposing politicians (or people with political aspirations) who support lynchings and it just makes it easier to whip them in elections. Years back, Bill Maher mocked Karl Rove and said that the next Bush that ran for office would bring with them some completely stupid issues like "let's put Reagan and the fetus on the $1 bill" or "no fucking on Jesus' birthday." This is pretty much the same thing, albeit far less embarrassing and more dignified (at least on the surface).

[Dahobbs 17437]

40 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

Maybe I don't get it, but isn't it redundant? Anti-lynching, anti-stabbing, anti-shooting, anti-suffocating are all murder which is already a federal crime? Are we just distinguishing the type of death to make a political/historical point so that a marginalized people feel good about it? If so, sounds good to me and good for them.

It does seem redundant and more of a political stunt than actual legislative effort. Show me where this new law would make criminal a set of facts that isn't criminal under existing federal law. I don't mind the sentiment, but our criminal code doesn't need to be filled to the brim with sentiment. I want clean, simple laws and clean, simple enforcement of them. 

[GHOSTUSER 361]

Good. I have heard the museum dedicated to the victims of lynchings in Alabama is very powerful and this new law will help more people learn about that awful part of our history. If you read about and see pictures of lynchings up through the fucking 20th century it is just fucking shocking. They would mutilate (usually chop the guy’s dick off) and burn the poor victim and turn the torture and murder of an innocent man into a fucking picnic/county fair with people smiling taking pictures of themselves with the corpse of the victim. Revolting. Out of curiosity, when was the the last time Congress tried to pass an anti-lynching and it failed.  

Edited December 20, 2018 by Iconoclast Texan

[High Plains Drifter 10970]

55 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

Maybe I don't get it, but isn't it redundant? Anti-lynching, anti-stabbing, anti-shooting, anti-suffocating are all murder which is already a federal crime? Are we just distinguishing the type of death to make a political/historical point so that a marginalized people feel good about it? If so, sounds good to me and good for them.

Murder isn't generally a federal crime. Now, if the murder is a lynching, it is.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

Reminds me of how Mississippi didn't vote to ratify the 13th amendment until 1995, and then didn't bother to make that ratification official until 5 years ago. 

[Dahobbs 17437]

55 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

It does seem redundant and more of a political stunt than actual legislative effort. Show me where this new law would make criminal a set of facts that isn't criminal under existing federal law. I don't mind the sentiment, but our criminal code doesn't need to be filled to the brim with sentiment. I want clean, simple laws and clean, simple enforcement of them. 

To clarify, I realize that is most instances the current law wouldn't give a federal court jurisdiction over a typical murder. It isn't clear to me what Constitutional basis would or could be used to extend this new law beyond those boundaries. Is lynching being tied in to interstate commerce somehow?

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20342]

You libtards and your concern for brown people. What about white people who were lynched? 

[Jiggy-Z 3432]

This reminds me of some musing I had back in the late 1990's:

I had heard on the radio or perhaps watched on TV a report of some new Federal regulation and its immediate implementation concerning air traffic control.  There was the usual background of what air traffic control was and how it worked etc. and then the intro to the new law, which was basically a definition of what air traffic controlling was-which was "now air traffic controls will have the ability communicate with multiple planes and coordinate their landings using computers that talk to each other"-or something equally obvious.  I was like, "wait, we don't already have that, what have you people been doing the last 60 years?"

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

There needs to be two words for lynching...I had an ancestor whose brother was lynched in Utah because he robbed and murdered a settler up there. Since there was not a court system, he was hung by an angry mob. That happened to lots of white people on the frontier. 

On the other hand, lynching of blacks in the old states (not just the South, but mostly) took place in the presence of actual laws and courts, who either looked the other way or failed in protecting due process under our laws. Lynching there was purely an instrument of racial terror instead of one of frontier justice, as what happened to my white kinsman up in Utah. It needs a worse name than lynching. 

[Ghost of LL 15477]

9 hours ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

Maybe I don't get it, but isn't it redundant? Anti-lynching, anti-stabbing, anti-shooting, anti-suffocating are all murder which is already a federal crime? Are we just distinguishing the type of death to make a political/historical point so that a marginalized people feel good about it? If so, sounds good to me and good for them.

No.  It's not redundant.  Unless a federal official is the victim, murder is not a federal crime.

Murder is obviously a state crime.  The problem is that state prosecutors have been unwilling/unable to bring murder charges against the perpetrators of lynchings (in some cases, the prosecutors were part of the lynch mobs).  

As to the constitutionality, look no further than the Fourteenth Amendment.

[Mole 4320]

4 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

Murder is obviously a state crime.  The problem is that state prosecutors have been unwilling/unable to bring murder charges against the perpetrators of lynchings (in some cases, the prosecutors were part of the lynch mobs).  

Is this an ongoing problem? My Wikipedia level understanding of recent lynching history aligns with my perception: it really doesn’t happen anymore. In the most recent case, the murderer was charged with murder. If there’s a compelling reason to pass such legislation, have at it. Even if there isn’t a compelling reason, I don’t see why it would be harmful, but why are we talking about lynching?

Let’s be honest, this is political grandstanding. How many cases in the past 20 years would have applied to this legislation?

What am I missing here?

[Ghost of LL 15477]

8 hours ago, Mole said:

Is this an ongoing problem? My Wikipedia level understanding of recent lynching history aligns with my perception: it really doesn’t happen anymore. In the most recent case, the murderer was charged with murder. If there’s a compelling reason to pass such legislation, have at it. Even if there isn’t a compelling reason, I don’t see why it would be harmful, but why are we talking about lynching?

Let’s be honest, this is political grandstanding. How many cases in the past 20 years would have applied to this legislation?

What am I missing here?

In the current political environment, I am unwilling to say that there is no risk of lynchings in the future.  Not when you see the lengths to which Republicans are willing to go to suppress and defraud the black vote in states like Georgia and North Carolina.  

And inasmuch as this is undoubtedly and uncontroversially the right thing to do, I can't fathom why anyone would spend even a nanosecond complaining about it.

So you tell me--what am I missing here?

[Mole 4320]

2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

So you tell me--what am I missing here?

What pulled me into this was the use of “is” and “have been” rather than “was” and “were” to describe a serious problem from a previous era. I don’t really have a problem with anti-lynching legislation even though it’s just symbolic. I guess it’s more relevant than rules concerning what kinds of alligators you can keep in your castle moat, but we’re talking about a largely historical problem. 

Connecting this to voter shenanigans seems like a stretch. I live in a district in Georgia that voted like 80-90% Kemp. I was one of a handful of people who walked past the confederate memorial outside the courthouse to vote against Kemp. Even where I live, a lynching wouldn’t be treated like it was 50 years ago.

The new Jim Crow understands that the perception of open and violent racism is no longer socially acceptable so the racially motivated voter suppression has to be more subtle. A civilized society has no place for anti-black violence (unless police are involved, then it’s a good shoot), but quietly removing them from the voter rolls is a patriotic duty against voter fraud.

Unless you have a time machine this isn’t really helping anyone. It’s just political symbolism and grandstanding. If you really want to make a dent in racial violence, you deal with the police issue. If you want to make a difference in disenfranchisement, deal with these voter issues.

[High Plains Drifter 10970]

24 minutes ago, Mole said:

 It’s just political symbolism

Symbols and symbolism can be powerful things. Why do you think the removal of Confederate statues is such a big deal, to both sides of the debate? Because they are powerful symbols.

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

23 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

You libtards and your concern for brown people. What about white people who were lynched? 

Sidebar!  OP is actually from the town of the largest mass lynching in US history . . . and it was white people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hanging_at_Gainesville

[Mole 4320]

58 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

Symbols and symbolism can be powerful things. Why do you think the removal of Confederate statues is such a big deal, to both sides of the debate? Because they are powerful symbols.

That’s great. Have all the symbolism you want as long as we’re all in agreement about what’s going on. Let’s all take a moment to nationally recognize the destructive racial legacy of the ~100 years of post-Civil War America. Talk about lynchings and the complicit nature of local authorities during that era. Use that as a jumping off point for discussing current racial issues.  But don’t conflate the two.

I was initially responding to language that was a little too present tense for reality. The present reality can be bad without pretending or suggesting that it’s worse than it is.

[VivaNaranja 466]

Nvm

Edited December 21, 2018 by VivaNaranja

[tantric superman 4667]

17 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

That happened to lots of white people on the frontier. 

Maybe horse theefs and man-burners.

[tantric superman 4667]

12 hours ago, Mole said:

Let’s be honest, this is political grandstanding. How many cases in the past 20 years would have applied to this legislation?

What am I missing here?

Some kind of "both sides" statement?  Maybe use of niggardly or "monkeyed up"?

[Dahobbs 17437]

7 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

In the current political environment, I am unwilling to say that there is no risk of lynchings in the future.  Not when you see the lengths to which Republicans are willing to go to suppress and defraud the black vote in states like Georgia and North Carolina.  

And inasmuch as this is undoubtedly and uncontroversially the right thing to do, I can't fathom why anyone would spend even a nanosecond complaining about it.

So you tell me--what am I missing here?

What is the jurisdictional basis for making this a federal matter? All federal crimes have a jurisdictional hook. I could certainly see specific instances invoking federal jurisdiction, but it isn't clear to me how lynching as a general matter reaches the federal level. And isn't there a specific federal statute against murder? It just only can apply in instances where federal jurisdiction has been invoked, usually involving interstate commerce? I am honestly asking, this isn't my area, so I must be missing something. 

Edited December 21, 2018 by Dahobbs
I responded to the wrong post, meant to reply to your first one.

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

What is the jurisdictional basis for making this a federal matter? All federal crimes have a jurisdictional hook. I could certainly see specific instances invoking federal jurisdiction, but it isn't clear to me how lynching as a general matter reaches the federal level. And isn't there a specific federal statute against murder? It just only can apply in instances where federal jurisdiction has been invoked, usually involving interstate commerce? I am honestly asking, this isn't my area, so I must be missing something. 

Probably the same as federal hate crime legislation.

[Mdhorn 5911]

NM

Edited December 21, 2018 by Mdhorn

[SDG 3319]

Does this impact death row?  I believe a few states (Washington) still hang.  

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

Wow.  The text is pretty surprising.  If you gather people together intending to hurt someone and that causes the person's death, you have lynched.  

 

SECTION 1. SPECIFYING LYNCHING AS A HATE CRIME ACT.

Section 249 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after paragraph 3 the following:

“(4) OFFENSES INVOLVING LYNCHING.—Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully, acting as part of any collection of people, assembled for the purpose and with the intention of committing an act of violence upon any person, causes death to any person, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined under this title, or both.”.

 

I was wrong re Constitutional authority.  Here is the House's constitutionality statement.  The hate crime law I referenced above found its authority in the 13th Am.

 

H.R. 6086.
Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant
to the following :
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: ``The Congress shall have
Power To . . . provide for the . . . and general Welfare of
the United States;''
Article I, Section 8, Clause 18: The Congress shall have
Power ``To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper
for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all
other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of
the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.''
Article III, Section 2, Clause 2: ``The judicial Power
shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under
this Constitution [and] the Laws of the United States . . .''
[Page H5153]
 

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

7 minutes ago, SDG said:

Does this impact death row?  I believe a few states (Washington) still hang.  

Hanging is the mental image, but that isn't really the heart of lynching.  It's about having a little murder fiesta.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

4 hours ago, SDG said:

Does this impact death row?  I believe a few states (Washington) still hang.  

"Well they hung ol Westley today," my mom once said, coming through the front door. "I've always wanted to say that about somebody."

(She was a heroin addict with a sense of humor and one of her methadone buddies married this dickhead while he was in prison.)