How Far We Have Come

I realize I discussed this briefly yesterday, but the chill this should send down our spines justifies lingering over this topic for at least one more day. We should take this opportunity to do an appraisal of where liberal social policies have taken us.
In the United States of America, you can immerse a cross in urine, or you can smear elephant dung on a statue of the Virgin Mary, and rather than be castigated for these actions, you can actually apply for, and receive, grant money from the NEA. People will pay to see this in an "art exhibit" and praise you for "speaking truth to power." You will be acclaimed by the educated elites, while the uncleaned, redneck masses object to their tax dollars being used to support such work. This is what happens when you desecrate Christian images. Nobody will fine you. Nobody will throw you in jail. Nobody will charge you with a hate crime. All criticism will be turned, instead, on those who seek to suppress your right to free expression. This is what happens in a country that was founded on Judeo-Christian, western civilization principles.
On the other hand, if you take a copy of the Koran and flush it down a toilet in the state of New York, you don't get charged with destruction of property or vandalism - no, you get charged with a hate crime. We charge people as criminals now based on what they think, but only regarding certain issues. If you hate, say, Christianity, the Catholic Church, Southern Baptists, Mormons, Jews, the state of Israel, this is all acceptable. Nobody will bat an eye. You can burn the flag, desecrate images of the leader of the Catholic church, etc., and your right to free expression is upheld. But don't you dare flush a Koran. That is hateful, and we will punish you for that. Freedom of expression be damned.
So let me see if I have this right. Liberals believe that there is a mysterious right to privacy written into the Constitution, and that right means that the government can't control what a women chooses to do with a life growing inside her body. Further, they believe that it allows two consenting adults to do pretty much whatever they want to do in the bedroom. But the right to privacy apparently does not extend to our minds. If you have feelings of hate (but only towards certain groups), then you can be prosecuted for it.
What is the deal with hate crimes, anyway? You remember this came up in the 2000 election because Bush didn't sign some Texas hate crime legislation. The idea was, based on a commercial by the NAACP, that Bush was somehow culpable in the murder of an African-American man because he didn't sign into law this legislation. Nevermind the fact that the people responsible were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. The death sentence was not enough for these murderers. What they really needed for justice to be met was for a jury to find these men also guilty of hate. That would deter more crime. Liberals want thoughts to now be a crime, as long as they get to dictate what thoughts are criminal. Hate Christianity or Judaism, and you are hailed as open-minded. Hate African-Americans or Islam, and you are the worst kind of criminal imaginable.
Something tells me our Koran flusher will not be receiving representation from the ACLU. Welcome to 1984. Watch out for those thought police!