h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"...If you commit a crime in pursuit of committing another crime, the penalties are harsher than for the individual crimes.

Why not apply the same thing to illegal immigration? Breaking any law, while already having broken the immigration law, results in increased penalties."

I can see the your logic, but unless the second crime is somehow connected to them being illigal immigrant I can't see why that should come into it.

Then again, I guess a lot of crimes could come under those circumstances- fraud, to hide your identity and immigration status, or theft if you come with no resources.

Some background on recent events in Italy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/21/italy.race

>>Well the OP is basically a precis of the BBC story, so I suppose we'll have to take the word of the famously biased, viciously anti-immigrant Beeb Beeb Ceeb then<<

I can't see anything on the BBC page that says it's being done within EU regulations.

But I still wouldn't take the word of a short online newspiece, even reputable sources are alarmingly unreliable in what they report.

*

Arne, just because the US does it, doesn't mean it's right

I also can't see how that example applies to the Italian situation.

So Bouncy, no hate crime laws?

kea, the illegal immigrants have broken 1 law - the immigrations laws. And then if they break another law, there is an increased penalty for the second crime - b/c of the combination of the 2 broken laws.

Now can you see the relation?

When you said:

>> If you commit a crime in pursuit of committing another crime, the penalties are harsher than for the individual crimes<<

you were meaning more than just hate crimes right?

If an illegal immigrant steals some food, how is that committing a crime in the pursuit of committing another crime?

>>"So Bouncy, no hate crime laws?"<<

I don't know what the substance of hate crime laws actually amounts to.

But I'm inclined to think that sentencing should be more or less left to the judge, with some guidelines laid down.

I certainly don't think that any particular group should be singled out for protection in hate crime laws - all should have it equally. I also don't think hate based on ethnicity or sexuality should be singled out by law. I understand that's addressing a social problem, but I reckon justice should be blind and laws build to stay relevant, no matter society's problems.

I'm not even sure, in fact, whether a criminal who intended to hurt someone should have a tougher punishment than a criminal who intended to make some personal gain, but happened to hurt someone because they don't care about people.

So basically I'm just confused on the whole issue.

Well kea, you could argue that the illegal immigrant had violated the immigration laws b/c it is easier to obtain (legally or illegally) food in the new country, and so the 2 crimes are linked. In this case, the illegal immigration is committed in pursuit of the theft of food.

Look, I'm generally not for this, but I am for harsher penalties for hate crimes, or the case of "felony murder", and I don't see how we can exclude one and not the other - at least in the theoretical realm.

"When people are scared and their government is ineffectual they do two things: they move to the right and they find a scapegoat."

Like Hitler's National Socialist Party ?

I find it interesting that the majority of seats that have returned BNP councillors were previously Labour strongholds. I see it more as responding to the politics of hate - for some reason the Left are far more suseptible to this.

Berlusconni ? Isn't he in jail yet ?

<>

Didn't he pass a law stopping investigations against the Prime Minister, at a time when, erm, *he* was the Prime Minister?

>>Didn't he pass a law stopping investigations against the Prime Minister, at a time when, erm, *he* was the Prime Minister?<<

Nah, he got defeated in his first attempt. He's almost got it through now though, it's passed both houses of their Senate and just needs the signature of their president, which is a formality.

He is living proof of the motto "If you try and don't suceed, try and try and try again"

>>I find it interesting that the majority of seats that have returned BNP councillors were previously Labour strongholds. I see it more as responding to the politics of hate - for some reason the Left are far more suseptible to this.<<

I'm not. It's a mistake to simply think of the BNP as a far-right party because they've got a strong ethos of redistribution, just instead of simple economic redistribution, they'll take it off the folks who aren't white, regardless of how British they are, and give it to white people (well, the white people who aren't gays, or Eastern Europeans).

Most people in the areas I've grown up and spent most of my life would set fire to themselves before they voted Tory, and yet many of them will consider voting BNP. One of the reasons the BNP do so well in Labour territory is because they both offer the poorest people in society a vision of living confortably without neccessarily having to do anything.

There's also the simple fact that race/ethnic/religious tensions are most easily stirred up when people are scared of losing what little they have. The BNP's message of hate has no resonence with me, because I'm not scared my job and home and benefits are going to be taken by someone whose family used to live in Mirpur, back around the same time that my family were farming outside Dublin (i.e. a long time ago). I'm relatively affluent and well-educated, I'm not scared. Someone who's living in a council house, getting by on benefits with a really bad education isn't going to have that same level of comfort. It works on all sides too - the rise of radical Islam can be seen as a similar process to the rise of the BNP.

Hey I'm new to this and a bit of a fossil when it comes to this computer business I may seem dislesic at times but that's just because I can't type I am really looking forward to some discussions being at the forfront of teachers and the holidays they have and so forth having taught in an inner city school for 18 years I'd like to hear your views on teachers saleries. Can I say I am not being antagonistic but would like this opportunity to put things straight - that is antagonistic - oops I'm not used to this sort of anonymous forum.

macgregortravel

go to the front page

scrool down and on the right hand side you will find the conversation forums

click on the relevant one and start a new convo about teachjers salaries

>I find it interesting that the majority of seats that have returned BNP councillors were previously Labour strongholds. I see it more as responding to the politics of hate - for some reason the Left are far more suseptible to this.

I think it's more that people were only voting Left for economic reasons rather than a more wide-spanning Leftist worldview. A lot of Labour voters where I grew up were solidly centre-right when it came to social issues and even general worldview but they voted Left because it made sense from an economic perspective.

The Left in general don't understand fascism, the only Leftwing writer I've read who examined it properly was Orwell. Most Leftwingers think of fascists as little more than violent racists, they are either ignorant of or ignore it's tradition of populism and anti-establishmentism both of which are strong currency on much of the Right as well of as the Left. Hitler put the word socialist in his party because, at the time, it was a word that gave the party appeal to the masses - the important thing is that Hitler wanted to appeal to ordinary Germans rather than the old Imperial elite (who he privately disliked). Fascists seem themselves not only as being on the side of "the man in the street" but as one of them. If you want to understand the BNP's relative success in recent years then you have to understand how and why fascism has gained support in the past and now; it's not simply a case of everyone getting a bit more racist, fascism is not only a reaction against Leftist politics it's arguably something that breeds on its failings.