We do not "gauge murder by intent", our legal system assigns different levels of punishment which is influenced greatly by intent. The act of murder is still an all of nothing act, it either happened or it didnt.
"First, discrimination isn't inherently bad."
To have that argument, we would first have to acknowledge that there was discrimination, but so far you dispute that by saying there must be intent in order to discriminate.
Intent:
1 a : the act or fact of intending : purpose; especially : the design or purpose to commit a wrongful or criminal act <admitted wounding him with intent> b : the state of mind with which an act is done : volition
2 : a usually clearly formulated or planned intention : aim <the director's intent>
To use murder as an example, if someone runs over someone because they were drunk and killed that person, the lack of intent to kill does not make that person any less of murderer.
As for the "implied intent" being included in Webster's definition, its frankly utterly absurd. One does not need to intend to discriminate for the act to be committed. For example, in a recent study they found that children are more likely to point to a black man than a white man when asked who they should be more afraid of, these children don't intend to discriminate based on race, but its a form of discrimination nonetheless.
by
Smokin on
03/10/2010 06:18:56 PM EST
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