Crime and Punishment ...Is that phrase copyrighted?

So this happened.  And this thing makes me simultaneously happy and dissatisfied.  Happy because it's a win for Gothdom and I am pleased that some of my brothers and sisters of the night can go about their lives in more surety of their safety than before.  On the other hand, dissatisfied, because part of me doesn't really believe the hate factor of a crime should even be a consideration.  If you attack somebody, I don't care whether it was because you dislike his deathawk or because your least favourite song came on the radio and you needed to take it out on anything with a pulse.  (Most likely, I have nothing but your word and/or the victim's on what was your motive anyway.)  Bottom line, you attacked someone, and that's that, and it's not okay.  To sum up: if there's going to be a hate crimes registry, I'm glad it's getting more inclusive, I'm just not sure there should be in the first place.  

A related issue I have is with lighter sentences for attempted crimes than for completed ones.  Why does someone get off easier because they're incompetent?  Or because they were stopped by someone else?  So long as the intent was there in sufficient force to cause an actual attempt, the crime was as well as done from the perspective of the perpetrator, even if it was luckily not completed.  

I understand why conspiracy doesn't get punished as severely.  If we were all punished for the awful things we thought about doing, even maybe planned out how to do, we'd all be in jail.  Even with desire to commit a crime established, though, you can never know if someone really would have gone through with it.  Once a physical attempt has occurred, though?

These are just some thoughts, but I also have a nagging, nit-picky question: What's the legal difference between attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon?  

Interesting sidenote: I'm honestly not sure to what extent this is merely a continuation of or corollary to Thursday's post.  

Don Giovanni

I Hate Everything.

This from someone who is probably less horrified than she should be by the idea of being raped.  Nothing about his behaviour in the opera is okay.  Most of my seminar seems to disagree with me, and that is horrifying.