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Comment by throwaway9143 | Hacker News Reader

If you've scared your fellow citizens into believing you're going to commit an imminent hate crime, then you're probably guilty. Government exists to keep us all safe from external and internal threats. Government protecting us from people who are imminently going to commit hate crimes is government working as intended.

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> Government exists to keep us all safe from external and internal threats.

They’re failing to muster a coast guard, a military, a functioning counter-intelligence service, a court system that isn’t over capacity, jails that aren’t overcapacity, …

How about they begin by dealing with real criminals and real crimes before we ever pretend they can be a morality police keeping people’s feelings from being hurt.

> If you've scared your fellow citizens into believing you're going to commit an imminent hate crime, then you're probably guilty.

If it's just about how much fear you instill in people - no matter how reasonable or unreasonable, than the same argument could be used about throwing immigrants, LGBT, intellectuals, etc in jail.

Look how easily people call others Nazis these days. I think your trust in your fellow citizen to reasonably define a hate crime is misguided.

They don't need to reasonably define a hate crime. Being scared of a hate crime is enough. And if they're scared, they've been given reason to be scared. And the person giving them a reason to be scared should be watched. If you don't want to be locked up for a hate crime, then don't scare people into thinking you're going to hurt them.

In general i see one very easy solution to this problem. People who want everyone else locked up for thoughtcrime can be locked up for threatening the human rights of their peers, and everyone else can move on with their lives. Your own standards getting applied to you is always fair.

> And if they're scared, they've been given reason to be scared.

We've just had elections in the EU and you won't believe how many people are scared of migrants. Now everyone can just say they're afraid of being victims of a hate crime committed by said migrants. What an amazing idea. /s

> If you don't want to be locked up for a hate crime, then don't scare people into thinking you're going to hurt them.

You know it doesn't work that way, and you know it well. Otherwise you wouldn't have used a throwaway account.

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