“Because federal hate crime laws criminalize thoughts, they are incompatible with a free society.”

— Ron Paul

Unconstitutional Legislation Threatens Freedoms, May 7, 2007 freerepublic.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1830822/posts <br class="br">2000s, 2006-2009

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Because federal hate crime laws criminalize thoughts, they are incompatible with a free society." by Ron Paul?

Ron Paul148

American politician and physician 1935

Related quotes

“But what are you supposed to do in a society that’s corrupt? Are you supposed to obey corrupt laws? Is it a crime to break a law that’s a rotten law, or an oath that’s rotten?
“It’s a crime,” Cartwright admitted slowly. “But it may be the right thing to do.”
“In a society of criminals,” Shaeffer offered, “the innocent man goes to jail.”
“Who decides when the society is made up of criminals? Benteley demanded. “How do you know when your society has gone wrong? How do you know when it’s right to stop obeying the laws?”

Philip K. Dick book Solar Lottery

“You just know,” Rita O’Neill said fiercely.
Source: Solar Lottery (1955), Chapter 14 (pp. 156-157)

“Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin; it is crimes that it must define.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Part 1, 1919 - 1968 The Road to 24 Sussex Drive, p. 83
Memoirs (1993)
Context: What is considered sinful in one of the great religions to which citizens belong isn't necessarily sinful in the others. Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin; it is crimes that it must define.

“By Numbers here from Shame or Censure free,
All Crimes are safe, but hated Poverty.
This, only this, the rigid Law persues,
This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

London: A Poem (1738) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/london2.html, lines 158–161

“The media insist that crime is the major concern of the American public today. In this connection they generally push the point that a disarmed society would be a crime-free society. They will not accept the truth that if you take all the guns off the street you still will have a crime problem, whereas if you take the criminals off the street you cannot have a gun problem.”

Jeff Cooper (1920–2006) American journalist

“Criminology, the study of crime and its causes, has a fundamental weak spot: it studies that proportion of the criminal population who are stupid or unlucky enough to get caught. The perfect criminal, should he or she exist, would be the one who is never apprehended—indeed, the one whose crimes may be huge but unnoticed, or indeed miscategorized as not crimes at all because they are so powerful they sway the law in their favor, or so clever they discover an immoral opportunity for criminal enterprise before the legislators notice it. Such forms of criminality may be indistinguishable, at a distance, from lawful business; the criminal a paragon of upper-class virtue, a face-man for Forbes.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Afterword, “The Golden Age of Spying” (pp. 388-389)
The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006)

“In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Statement on the Congressional Education Plan, May 23, 2001 http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2001/cr052301.htm <br class="br">2000s, 2001-2005