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Subject: Claremont Institute Precepts: Tolerance and Rights
Date sent: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:57:51 -0700
The Claremont Institute--PRECEPTS |
|
August 20, 1999 Visit <http://www.claremont.org> |
| No. 187
In a Los Angeles suburb last week, another wicked act of
violence against innocent children made national news. The
response from political leaders and pundits has been
predictable, and in many ways regrettable.
Every demagogue in the country took to the airwaves and
waved the bloody shirt, fulminating against the scourge of
guns and declaiming the urgent need for special laws
against crimes motivated by hatred. They turn too quickly
from the suffering of these children and their parents to
the political agendas which they hold most dear.
Here is a high-profile, deplorable offense, the latest in a
series of such offenses. In this case, a minority group was
singled out by a disturbed loner who identifies with the
cause of National Socialism and the doctrine of white
supremacy. This is a scandal and an outrage. It was
committed by a man of unsound mind, who was released from
prison on probation, and whose probation was not properly
monitored. We should have a debate about how to improve
probation, and how better to keep people who are violent
behind bars where they cannot harm others. The direct
remedies--and they are not perfect--lie in this area.
Instead, the debate centers on a) the ban, confiscation,
and destruction of legally obtained firearms from law
abiding citizens; b) new federal and state laws which would
add additional penalties if it is found that a crime was
motivated by "bias."
As to the first, it is important that Mr. Furrow, like the
boys of Littleton, Colorado, broke existing firearms laws.
Neither would have had the guns they did have, if those
laws had been enforced. Instead of enforcing those already
on the books, which applied very well to the circumstances
of the tragedies in question, we propose instead to pass
new laws that have little or nothing to do with those
circumstances. This will not be effective.
As to the second, "hate crimes" legislation, it is
important that Mr. Furrow, and the boys in Littleton,
Colorado, both committed capital crimes. By those acts they
made themselves subject to the most severe penalties that
the law can impose, unless we resurrect the practice of
torture. It will add nothing to their punishment to convict
them of a new crime based upon the "bias" they showed in
the selection of their victims.
Moreover, if we add to murder prosecutions the new element
of "bias" or "hate" against certain groups, we make the
implication that it is worse to murder one person, than it
is to murder another, worse to shoot one child, than it is
to shoot another. This is not good doctrine. Children who
do not fit the selected groups will wonder what this means
for them. And they may be subject to greater danger.
In this talk of "hate crimes," we speak often of the virtue
of tolerance. Tolerance is indeed a virtue, rightly
understood. But it is not a sufficient conception to
explain the events perpetrated by Mr. Furrow or the
Littleton boys. They did much worse than fail to tolerate
their fellow citizens. They rather deprived them of one of
their sacred rights.
The children fired upon in Los Angeles were Jewish, going
to summer classes at an Episcopal (Christian) church.
George Washington, a citizen and a Christian, once
addressed a note to some Jewish fellow citizens about the
superiority of rights to tolerance, on matters of high
importance.
"It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it
was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another
enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights,"
Washington wrote. "For happily the Government of the United
States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution
no assistance requires only that they who live under its
protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in
giving it on all occasions their effectual support."
Government is obliged to protect the rights of us all, and
equally. It should get about that work.
To read the full text of Washington's letter to the Hebrew
Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, I invite you to
visit our website on the American Founding,
<http://www.founding.com>, or go to the Claremont
Institute's website at
<http://www.claremont.org/1_statmnofwk.cfm>.
Sincerely,
Larry P. Arnn
President, The Claremont Institute
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Copyright (c) 1999 The Claremont Institute
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