> Making someones opinion or feelings criminal is insanity
You are right, but "hate crimes" are not just bad thoughts, they are bad thoughts brought through to action. It's one thing to rationally defend yourself from an attack and unintentionally kill the attacker, it's entirely another thing if you act on your toxic worldview based on bullshit and someone ends up harmed or worse. It's just too bad we don't apply this thinking to things like... oh, I don't know, religions that actively try to prevent their congregations from getting immunized.
"Hate crimes" in some countries also comprise expression of hate. Hate crimes can be a useful designation for research and social intervention, but prosecuting them more harshly is literally policing thought as a secondary offense and makes the population malleable to further authoritarianism. It's a bailey type of argument because criticizing it means you must be sympathetic to racists.
We punish "thought as a secondary offense" all the time. eg: involuntary manslaughter vs voluntary manslaughter vs third degree murder vs second degree murder vs first degree murder.
Or more pointedly - terrorism is a different charge from murder, the difference being the "thought as a secondary offense" of intending to cause a political effect with your act of murder.
Hate crimes are analogous to terrorism. They are an offense not just against an individual, but an entire class of individuals. They are intended to send a message (even if it's as simple as "I don't think you should be present in my society") and cause fear and intimidation. And as such it's perfectly fine to punish that differently from plain old "killed you for the paper in your wallet".
Why do you feel it necessary to bring up how much you hate crime laws in a thread about CRISPR?
You are right, but "hate crimes" are not just bad thoughts, they are bad thoughts brought through to action. It's one thing to rationally defend yourself from an attack and unintentionally kill the attacker, it's entirely another thing if you act on your toxic worldview based on bullshit and someone ends up harmed or worse. It's just too bad we don't apply this thinking to things like... oh, I don't know, religions that actively try to prevent their congregations from getting immunized.