Swastika Law Stupid
By: Robert Carberry
New York State has passed another dumb law. This time a new “swastika law” has been passed. Basically, anyone caught defacing property in any way without permission using the Nazi swastika symbol can now get up to four years in jail. Of course, the KKK’s burning cross is also included so all of the politically protected groups in New York can celebrate. Now we all can get back to the “regular stuff” of low-down graffiti, cursing, spitting, throwing trash everywhere and good ol’ crime. Just make sure you don’t burn a cross while doing this or carve out a swastika.
Even the New York Civil Liberties Union is having trouble with this law and is seriously looking into appealing. Good. It should be thrown out for the garbage that it is. We are now at the point where a person can commit an offense that does more physical harm to another human being and gets LESS time in jail compared to someone who uses a swastika, burns a cross or yells out a racial epithet. Sick, pathetic, cowardly. And on and on.
As usual, politics has much to do with this dopey law. Jewish people make up a substantial amount of people in New York State and New York City has the most Jews outside of Israel. This along with political contributions, the fact Jews vote in high numbers and are well organized obviously have a huge affect. So-called “minority groups” have long ago developed pressure groups so the cross-burning crap is thrown in for good measure.
What New York is trying to create is a sort of “politically-correct graffiti punk.” This new punk is given the green-light to do all kinds of things to property as long as a swastika is not put on for the finishing touch. It is ok to use sexually lewd terms, curses and general filth on buildings but no swastika. Got it graffiti jerk? At least be sensitive when destroying buildings.
Of course graffiti is not a priority in New York. If it were, why not give everyone up to four years in jail for it which this swastika/cross-burning law will do? Everyone knows graffiti would be a thing of the past. Right now such offenses are greeted with a misdemeanor. In Southeast Asia they “cane” your butt. They hit you with a hard stick on the rear-end so many times, and not softly. Imagine that here? Every creepy lawyer and “civil-wrongs” group would slither out of the woodwork.
As trashy as the swastika symbol is, this is not Nazi Germany. Not even close. As painful and nasty it is to see such a symbol placed on a building-usually by punk kids-this should not be placed into a category so much worse than “regular” graffiti. It is all ugly and nasty and low. Punish it all the same. Let the graffiti punks write garbage on their own houses. Better yet, let them do it in jail for up to four years.
Robert Carberry is a freelance writer from New York