Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Pardon my sensitivity

Hate crimes are a curious item: I'm not sure exactly how they're figured. I'm pretty sure road rage should be one, for example, but really the people who speak in these terms mean "bigot crimes" or "racist crimes" or maybe, if you want to be mealy-mouthed, "bias crimes."

There are apparently not very many: The FBI only counted about 1,600 such crimes based on religion in 2007. Sure, I know, that's one every 5 hours! Or 6! depending on how you count, I suppose.

But it is also only 80 by state each year, so...

On the flip side, USA Today reports 68 percent of those crimes were against Jews. I'm not sure what to say about that, but that's not the kind of thing that makes you feel like this country welcomes with open arms.

Besides the whole control-of-the-media thing, what's so scary about Jews?

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