There's nothing funny about a noose. Sorry, there just isn't. Not in westerns, not in suicides, and certainly not in political humor. Which is maybe why hanging Sarah Palin in effigy as part of a Halloween display (click link for video) is so typical of West Hollywood. Tasteless and unfunny.
But a hate crime? That's serious hysterical over-reacting by the same people who thought the nooses in Louisiana were nothing but a practical joke.
A West Hollywood Halloween display showing a likeness of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin hanging by a noose has caused a furor among some residents who reported it as a hate crime, authorities said Monday.
But Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said the mannequin sporting a beehive hairdo, glasses and a red coat does not rise to the level of a hate crime because it was part of a Halloween display.
"I'm not defending this; I'm not criticizing it. It doesn't rise to the level of hate crime," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, who said he went out to the house himself to look at the display this morning.
"Now, if there was a crime against bad taste . . . "
Sgt. Kristin Aloma of the Sheriff's Department's West Hollywood station said that since Sunday she had received five to 10 calls from residents offended by the display. Officials are monitoring the house to make sure the situation doesn't get out of hand, she said.
To begin with, "hate crimes" are those perpetrated against someone because they're members of a despised group - blacks, Jews, gays, that sort of thing. Being a despised celebrity VP impersonator doesn't count. Neither does being a scorned Alaskan beauty queen with all the brains and knowledge onen woyulod expect from that member of a largely blonde group.
Or are the offended ones actually suggesting that a group as privileged - and as elite - as Stupid Beauty Queens Masquerading as Political Heavyweights is a despised minority?
Get the impression that wingnuts never really did understand the whole concept of a "hate crime"? If somebody they hate is beaten up or murdered, it isn't a hate crime. In fact it's probably a practical joke and the jokers should be patted on the back and sent on their way to do more good deeds.
If, otoh, somebody they agree with has a pie thrown in his/her face, that is a HATE CRIME and should be punished with the full weight of the law up to and including death in a faulty electric chair while they sit in the audience and cheer.
Has it occurred to anyone else that the American right wing has never really gotten the concept of fairness for all? That maybe they'd be happier in Burma or Soviet Russia?
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