The case against our "Hate Crime" culture mentality in one easy story

A two year investigation of the Covenant School Shooting, the shooter's manifesto never having been officially released to my knowledge, has come to an end.  Apparently the school, the traditional, conservative Christian school, was just a random target. Yes, the investigation found much rage and hatred aimed at targets that could be argued to identity with that particular school.  But apparently the school being targeted was just random and not for any other reason than dumb, blind luck.  

Remember, George Floyd was killed by a racist cop because of American systemic racism. The protests, riots, court case, condemnation of America as a 400 year old racist state, were all based on that verdict as soon as the story broke.  And how did we know it was racism?  Derek Chauvin is white, that's why.  That's all we needed to know to not only immediately label it a racist hate crime, but then move to tarnish by association everything up to the whole of Western Civilization. 

Yet time and again we'll see cases where something like the Covington shooting happens, and contrary to similar standards in other cases, it looks like it was just random fortune.  Or a shooter with reams of rage hate against religion in general or Christianity in particular opens fire on a church - and authorities are unable to pinpoint a reason for it. Maybe a mental health problem?  Or a black man kills multiple white people and is found to have endless posts hating on white people, but can we ever know why?  A card carrying Democrat and leftwing activists opens fire on a group of Republican politicians, but we can't really speak to motives can we?  Or a Muslim goes into a bar and murders multiple people because, according to the gunman, he is outraged at America's policies in the Middle East.  So perhaps it was homophobia?  

I'm no lawyer, but I recall the argument against the concept of hate crimes - and yes, youngsters might be shocked to discover that this was a debate in the 90s and not something universally agreed upon - was the pure subjective nature of it.  That it could be driven by very shallow, and trendy, opinions, narratives and nothing more.  Or it could be based on social prejudices or biases or ideological activism and not actual proof.  Of course there were other arguments, such as the severity of the crime being based on the demographic identity of the victim. The implication that a white man raping and murdering a white woman might be bad, but nowhere as bad as if he does the same exact thing to a black woman purely because of the victim's skin color, had a certain ick factor for some people.  Assuming, of course, that saying a white or black person has anything to do with skin color.  

But on the whole, the argument I remember repeated often was that the idea of 'hate' is just too darn subjective, and too apt to be based only on theoretical fashions, trends, and the latest talking points in a college bar rather than objective fact based assessments.  Nowhere is this more clear than here, or any one of dozens of cases where motives never seem able to challenge the dominant leftwing narratives of who will or won't forever be guilty based on oppressor or oppressed status. 

For my part - again, no lawyer here - that is the problem.  That it seems almost a stealth way of preemptively judging or exonerating people based on their particular identities and allegiances, only with legal teeth.  

Deacon Greydanus responds

To the piece by Mike Lewis explaining his swing to the left of center.  Apparently Lewis's piece is getting quite a bit of attention.

The response is copied from his Facebook page below. Ironically, I had blocked the good deacon some time ago because I grew tired of his playing fast and loose with honest discourse.  I hated to see him slip into the same pit I've seen far too many, especially to the left of center, slip.  That 'words speak louder than actions' trick that defines so much dialogue with those who tack progressive gets under my skin color.

Nonetheless, I thought better of it. I'm not a fan of blocking or banning people.  Especially fellow believers. It makes me think of retreating into a room in the church basement and locking the door to keep 'those other believers' out of our hipster church club.  I concede it must happen sometimes.  But it should be done like it was in the olden days of the Internet - rarely and only because of the worst cases (threats, calumny, personal attacks without stopping after multiple warnings).  So I unblocked him, only to have him block me.  That's because I finally called him out on his 'good cop/bad cop' tendency of threatening to block people who even challenge a leftwing mantra, saying he only wants the best behavior on his pages, while standing back and letting people like Shea and Rebecca Weiss and other leftwing readers rip into anyone challenging their leftwing sympathies with endless name calling, accusations and personal attacks.  So that was the end of me.

Nonetheless, there are others I know and follow who haven't been banned, and other sources that still follow him.  So from those sources this came to me, which I thought was every bit as telling as Mr. Lewis's piece (that's why no link, BTW).  What think you?  Do you notice what I notice in his reasoning?  

Apparently someone challenged the 'only those MAGA types are the real problem' template.  Deacon Greydanus's response is to that comment.  First the comment: 

All of this irritates me to no end. Fine, people on the right are too factional. So are people on the left. Every single Catholic group my wife and I ever been involved in (including breastfeeding groups, homeschooling groups, and pro-life groups) fall into the same trap of constantly pointing at someone else and saying “They’re factional!” The devil knows its a perfect trap: Factionalism is really bad, and to constantly complain about factionalism only deepens factionalism. It would be much better, I think, to spend time promoting the good that Jesus Christ offers the world and how that instantiates itself in various proposals. We never get to do that because we always say, “First of all, look what a jerk the other guy is. Now let me tell you about Jesus.

And his response:  

I have something to say about this. I don’t think your response is adequate. I don’t think you’re entirely reckoning with what this discussion is really about.

Here’s what I think you may be missing: People like Mike and me (along with many people in this thread, as you can see for yourself) are not just angry or upset about “factionalism,” or people being “jerks.” We are wounded souls processing trauma and grief over the loss of one-time heroes and friends whom we watched in dismay and disbelief as they turned against us, and against, so it seems to us, the heart of the faith we thought we shared with them, in the process of building a militant, powerful Catholic subculture organized around entrenched resistance to the pope (if not to Vatican II), a string of culture-war shibboleths (e.g., knee-jerk repudiation of anything associated with “wokeness”; deep hostility regarding any attempt to treat people who identify as LGBTQ with respect and welcome), unfettered enthusiasm for the hardest possible line on immigration, and, ultimately, uncritical, quasi-religious support of Trump/MAGA.

We have heard these things said from pulpits, from episcopal offices, and in Catholic media spaces. We have been told—by people we respected and cared about, whose words we used to hang on—that we are not really Catholic if we see things differently.

I’m not saying progressive, dissenting Catholics can’t be factionalistic. I’m saying we who don’t (or, in some cases, who once didn’t) dissent from the Church never expected progressive dissenters, or any dissenters, to model Christian unity and integrity. We did expect that of our heroes and friends. Their betrayal—compounded by their accusation that *we* are the traitors—is an open wound from which we continue to suffer.

Cardinal Burke was one of my great heroes, a rock star of fidelity, erudition, and sober judgment in my eyes. To see him brought low by so absurd a rightwing canard as Covid vaccine microchip conspiracy theories was bad enough. Worse was his violence to basic canon law principles—Cardinal Burke, doing violence to canon law!—by redefining “apostasy” to include Catholics like President Biden whom he considers to have “publicly and obstinately violated the moral law,” and his quite literally scandalous “just asking questions” engagement with sedevacantist speculation about Pope Francis being invalidly elected (in discussion with Patrick Coffin, who has repeatedly platformed the likes of E. Michael Jones, among other gross things).

That’s just one example—and I don’t even know Cardinal Burke. I’ve been insulted and attacked in every way imaginable by people I once called friends. I am a fallen and flawed human being who has made many mistakes, and not every ugly word flung my way has been undeserved or incomprehensible. But some of them are simply because I believe God is doing good things in the Church through Pope Francis. Because I believe my Black neighbors and brothers in Christ when they say racism is still a significant problem. Because I believe in treating people who identify as queer first as human beings created in God’s image. Because I believe that immigrants who have lived here for decades have rights that must be respected.

Cardinal Ratzinger, shortly before his election to the chair of Peter, talked about the danger posed by those who talk about God but live contrary to him, and how this opens the door to unbelief. He talked about the great need for people who, by the enlightened faith they live, “make God credible” in the world. Our crisis, our wound, is that the very people who once made God credible for us have now turned out to be people who talk about God but live contrary to him. This has led many to doubt, to struggle with unbelief, to fall away from the Catholic communion, or to lose their faith altogether. This is not about mere factionalism. This is about making God’s love visible in the world, or distorting it in the pursuit, ultimately, of political power.