The problem with thought, speech and emotion crimes is, they are always selectively enforced. Imagine a group of leftists being arrested and convicted on hate crimes charges for tearing up a copy of Mien Kampf in front of a group of Neo-Nazis. Not gonna happen. Or tearing up Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in front of a group of successful people.

Not that they would be bothered. People influenced by genuine ideas tend not to be too too uptight about abuse of the symbols of those ideas by idiots. It is, as any Buddhist will tell you, more damaging to the person who damages the symbols than to the object of their hate. But to muslims all their little items are really fetish objects that they claim to hold sacred, even while hollowing them out to hide stuff in as we see in Guantanamo or burning them if they can foist the crime off on a Christian in Pakistan as an excuse to go kill them etc. but more to the point, muslims insist that we unbelievers hold their holy book sacred and treat it in a reverent fashion even more than they are required to do.

This makes it a fetish but more importantly, a kind of weapon and token of our subjugation. And to find people guilty of a hate crime for tearing one up in front of the people-of-the-perpetually-insulted, well, we are doing their work for them.

It does beg the question though:

‘If I claim out loud to a group of Muslims that I hold the exact same desire for them, the same outcome, the same consequences as they do for me, am I guilty of a hate crime?’

Now there is a leftists dilemma.

Eeyore for Vlad.

From Volokh:

Dr. Jogchum Vrielink (coordinator of the Centre for Discrimination Law at the University of Leuven, Belgium) passes this along:

In Belgium a man was convicted for ‘racist hate speech’ because he publicly tore up a Koran, before the eyes of a group of Muslims. The case illustrates the need to protect free speech against those seeking to criminalise ‘Islamophobia’.

On 8 June 2012 a man, identified as Arne S., participated in a demonstration organised by a radical right-wing political party, Vlaams Belang (‘Flemish Interest’), opposing the construction of a mosque in the Belgian coastal city of Ostend. In the aftermath of the demonstration S. tore up a Koran in the presence of a small group of Muslims, with whom he had exchanged words. The public prosecutor indicted S. for incitement to hatred, discrimination and violence on the basis of race and ethnic origin.

The defendant’s attorney called for an acquittal, arguing that no infraction on the anti-racism legislation had occurred. The criminal court in Bruges convicted the man, however, on 11 March 2013. Due in part to the unfavourable criminal history of the defendant, the sentence was relatively severe, consisting of an effective prison sentence of four months and a fine of 600 euros. The court held that the facts were serious and testified to “a blatant lack of tolerance and a highly questionable attitude”.

Terrorist!Click to continue: