Word: america
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...most pernicious implications of hate-crimes laws, however, are those tied to freedom of thought. America is a country in which everyone is entitled to his opinion, no matter how odious that opinion may be. People have the right to be offensive, so long as their views do not lead to actions that extend beyond speech or thought. But this premise complicates the legitimacy of hate-crimes laws. If racism is permitted legally but murder is not, then how can it be justified for murder borne out of racism to be treated more severely than any other kind of murder...
Hate-crime legislation grew out of a long history of racial violence in America, during which violence was used as a way to intimidate and oppress African-Americans. Vicious crimes such as lynchings and beatings were intended to make the members of an entire racial group feel unwelcome and unsafe. The development of hate-crime legislation, beginning with the 1969 Federal Hate Crimes Law, became an important way to both discourage such acts and diminish the culture of prejudice and discrimination that often implicitly condoned them. The new hate-crimes law is an admirable continuation of efforts to curb bias...
...attempt to change the law with his Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008, which he sponsored to end federal penalties for marijuana possession. Besides Frank, however, few congressmen have touched this taboo issue. As violence in Mexico increases, with inevitable spillover into the U.S., America will have to end the “War on Drugs,” which President Barack Obama has already admitted was an utter failure...
Over the weekend, gunmen murdered a peasant union leader and 14 others in the latest high-profile drug killings. With violence and bloodshed at the doorstep of our border with Mexico, America can no longer ignore the deteriorating circumstances of our neighbor to the south. Now that force has failed, an end to drug prohibition is the obvious next step...
Health is one of your big issues. What you think of the health care bill that just passed out of committee? It's very problematic because it's not addressing the root causes of the health crisis in America. As I've said, we don't have a health care crisis in the country - we have a health crisis. Our health care system is not nearly as broken as [our] health. Eighty percent of the $2.4 trillion [in U.S. health care spending] is on chronic disease. When you consider that what the Congress is attempting to address is more about...