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.