Police and Hillel officials believe the fire was deliberately set but was not a hate crime.

“Hate” is something that is far to difficult to prove and “hate” itself should not be a crime, that’s the “thought police,” lets not waste our resources on trying to prove something so nebulous. Instead let the focus the act itself. There are plenty of laws on the books to deal with this without resorting to wasteful “hate crime” paths.

This reminds me of the Koran flusher in New York, I never heard what happened to him. That simple act of vandalism was going to be elevated to a felony. What happen with that case Bryan, do you know ?

Maxx on October 8, 2007 at 4:24 PM

Who remembers the The Flush Heard Round the World ?

Steve Yuhas’s article below does a much better job of describing why “hate crime” law are ridiculous and dangerous than I ever could. If you recall, Stanislav Shmulevich, the young man that flushed the Qurans could have had this simple act of vandalism trumped-up to a felony charge. That is crazy and not just. Yes he should have to pay for whatever damages he did, but converting what may have been just a moment of infantile anger with no one hurt into massive jail time is just wrong and un-American.

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One really has to wonder about the amount of time that the New York City police department has considering they took months to investigate, collect evidence and charge Stanislav Shmulevich, a former Pace University student, for throwing a couple of Qurans in toilets.

Charges in this case are laughable considering we live in a country where flags are burned, Muslims regularly yell “death to America” at their Friday prayer in Mosques across the country and where Jews, Christians and atheists are allowed to be bashed with impunity in everything from newspapers to television and our religious iconography turned into art with urine or feces.

The facts of the case are quite simple: closed circuit cameras caught Shmulevich taking two paperback Qurans from the university “mediation room” (whatever that is) and later a professor saw a book in a toilet. Now the 23-year-old is charged with hate crimes – felonies in the state of New York.

Pace University overreacted because Muslim students on campus were not happy that Pace treated the incident as an act of vandalism, which it probably was. When the Muslim students pushed for it the university obliged and the Quran flush (it almost sounds like a drinking game) was referred to New York cops for treatment as a hate crime.

The idea of hate crimes is idiotic on its face: does anyone commit a crime of love? Passion sure, unplanned murder when you catch your husband or wife in bed with another person is certainly something unplanned, but can one commit a crime against a book? That is exactly what this is for to be anything other than simple vandalism there has to be a victim and nobody is hurt, if nothing else the Muslim students are stronger for this act, not weakened or victimized.

Muslim students got exactly what they wanted and they are being coddled by not only the university, but also the state of New York. Charging a young man with vandalism is fine – he threw a book owned by Pace University into a toilet, but putting him on trial in a city where the reality of Islam showed itself on September 11, 2001 seems hardly to be a rational spending of taxpayer money.

There is not a jury in New York that will ultimately find Shmulevich guilty of anything and given the records of Muslims in New York I can see why. After all it was Muslims that committed every act of terrorism against the people of the United States, less the Timothy McVeigh anomaly, and they did it in the name of Allah. So long as crimes are done in the name of Allah it seems only logical to follow that committing an act of civil disobedience against the book where Muslims find their courage to kill Americans is justified.

I would not be surprised if Mein Kampf, a book that helped Hitler and his followers carry out acts of barbarism against the world was not thrown in a few toilets after or during WWII. The Quran is no different since it gives Muslims the comfort, indeed the permission, to blow us up.

We’ve been asking ourselves for too long how we can live life free of the burden of worrying about offending Muslims. When cartoons that featured Mohammed appeared in Europe last year Muslims across the globe took to the streets and began killing people and burning things. Now we cannot just call an act of vandalism just that – we have to appease Muslim students by calling water logging a book that calls for our death and destruction a hate crime.

Islam is the hate crime – the Quran is only the messenger.

The radical Muslims ready to take to the streets for any concocted reason deserve to be offended! They offended every ounce of our being on September 11, 2001 when they yelled Allah Akbar as they flew airliners into buildings. They offend me each time an American is returned home in a flag draped coffin after being blown by roadside bombs or when people are beheaded while their executioner holds a Quran and yells Allah Akbar. Yeah – he’s just splendid – kill the infidels. Now there is the hate crime.

During his trial, if there is one, Shmulevich need only show the jurors what Islam has done to our country – show a film with the background sound of hijackers yelling Allah Akbar as they turned airliners into missiles to kill as many people as they could.

If I had the opportunity to flush the Quran I probably would, but I don’t own one and I’m not going to face jail by going to a meditation room to find one to flush. Not the least reason is because many Qurans in the United States, indeed around the world, are published in Saudi Arabia and the last thing I want is to pour more money into a country that seeks our destruction.

Muslims are lucky that flushing the Quran did not become the national past time, eclipsing baseball for the title, after what Islam has done to innocent people all over the world. The precedent is set, however, for now any religious disrespect is a hate crime in New York. I can hardly wait for the next rendition of a crucifix in urine or feces on the Virgin Mary. The courts will be packed for those trials and since Muslims want hate crime status for their book I certainly expect it for mine.

Talk about a slippery slope and although I’m loath to want one if there has to be one this is one I will relish watching hurl out of control and off the tracks. Besides – what happened to academic freedom? I was under the impression that anything done on a college campus was perfectly okay if it started a discussion? I guess that genie is out of the bottle too, but that is a conversation for another day.

By Steve Yuhas

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I hope the cops are able to find whoever set fire to the Silicon Valley Jewish student center sukkah and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. But “hate crime” laws will never be fair if for no other reason, it is not possible to read a person’s mind to determine what they were thinking when they did the act. It should not be the focus of the court, no time should be wasted trying to make such a determination, simply focus on if the defendant is the one who committed the act and if found guilty… throw the book at them.

Hate crime laws are a danger to free speech. In Germany a Christian minister has already been threated with jail time for simply preaching the scriptures. Let’s not let that happen here. Whatever it is that you think and say could become the focus of the next hate crime law. Hate crime laws are a way to silence non-politically-correct speech and protest. Let’s please reject hate crime laws and prosecute the “act” and not the “thought.”

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By the way, it looks like the Shmulevich case had a fitting outcome. But will it next time… if we embrace hate crime laws ?

Maxx on October 8, 2007 at 8:37 PM