Hoping for Hate

Michael L.

Much of the Left is hoping for hate.

Three young Muslim Americans were murdered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, near the university of.

According to BBC.com:

Police say that Craig Hicks, 46, carried out the shootings as a result of a parking dispute.

But they have not ruled out the possibility that the killings may have been motivated by religious hatred.

At least 12 firearms were taken from Mr Hicks's home after he handed himself in to be arrested, police say.

He is reported to have described himself online as a "gun-toting" atheist.

Yet for reasons that I can merely speculate about much of the Left has decided that this was a "hate crime."  That is, many people on the progressive-left - millions of Americans - are utterly convinced that Craig Hicks killed those young people simply because they were Muslim.

I spoke with a close friend of mine yesterday who works at Stanford University and who is a highly intelligent and thoughtful person who told me that she believed it was a hate crime and that there was no point in even discussing it because her mind was made-up on the matter.

I simply looked at her and said, "Well, many millions of people agree with you."

But I do not get it.

A white guy killed three Muslim Americans.

Must that automatically mean that he killed them because they were Muslim Americans?

I would not make that assumption were they Jewish.  I would wonder, certainly, and I would look to see what evidence is out there, but I would not automatically leap to that conclusion unless there were cries of "Alahu Akbar" and the sound of automatic rifle fire.

This is not to say that bigotry was not a contributing factor.  We know that Hicks despised religion and although hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people are combing his Face Book page, I have not seen anything to indicate that he singled out Islam.

I am, however, in this case, less interested in Mister Hicks than I am interested in just why it is that so many people feel a need to hope for hate.

The people in the photo above are mourning the loss of Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha.

Yusor and Razan were a young married couple starting out in life and they were slaughtered by a maniac.  Hicks may be a bigoted maniac, but a maniac he is and he will never see a day of freedom again in his life, if our system of justice is related to justice.

But the fact of the matter is that there is no reason to assume that this was a hate crime.  It may very well have been, but there is nothing, thus far, to suggest that Hicks killed these young people because they were Muslim.

FBI Hate Crime Statistics in the United States from 2011 show that among hate crimes, by religion, 63.2 percent were victims of anti-Jewish bias, while a mere 12.5 percent were victims anti-Islamic bias.

The question then becomes, why does the Left assume that American Muslims are subject to widespread anti-Muslim bigotry while almost entirely dismissing the far more significant statistical presence of anti-Jewish bigotry?

Why do so many on the Left seem to hope for hate for some and downplay it for others?

In other words, what are the acceptable boundaries for malice within the western Left?