Quote Originally Posted by jnich67 View Post
I feel that if anyone tried to pass or enforce something like that here, the backlash would be substantial - too substantial to make it worth anyone's while.
The problem is that laws that SOUND reasonable are passed, and then influential people with their own agendas twist and exploit them.

In the UK for example, crimes where the victim claims to believe there was racial motivation are deemed to be more serious and the police have to treat them as high priority. E.g. if there are two separate stabbings, and one victim states an opinion that it was a racial attack, that stabbing gets investigated first and more thoroughly and if a conviction is gained the punishment will be higher.

Seems to me that one unjustified stabbing is just as wrong as another, but our law no longer sees it that way.

Everything in the UK changed after the Lawrence Enquiry. BBC NEWS | VOTE2001 | FACTS | Race: The Macpherson report A young black man was killed with a knife in a struggle. When the police investigated they treated the last person known to have seen him alive as a potential suspect. I believe that is standard police procedure the world over. But because the victim and that suspect were both black, it was interpeted as racist. There was a big enquiry and the Macpherson Report branded the poilice "institutionally racist." That was an official judgement, one that still applies. The police have been treading on eggshells ever since.

Of course there are people who are happy with this, and people who aren't. But it all came about because of laws that "sounded" reasonable.