The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports:
Six women were shot -- one fatally -- this afternoon at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by a man who told a witness he was upset about "what was going on in Israel." ...
"We believe it's a lone individual acting out his antagonism," said David Gomez, who heads the FBI's counterterrorism efforts in Seattle....
"He said 'I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,' before opening fire on everyone," [Marla] Meislin-Dietrich[, who works at the center,] said. "He was randomly shooting at everyone." ...
Pajamas Media has a round-up; thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer.
The law should, I think, treat such crimes with the same severity as it would a similar crime motivated just by a desire to kill random people. While I think many laws that enhance penalties for crimes in which victims are chosen based on race, religion, sexual orientation, and the like are constitutional, I think they are unwise and draw a moral distinction that strikes me as on balance inadequate (not irrational by any means, but on balance inadequate). Nonetheless it certainly makes sense that we would notice these crimes for what they are -- manifestations of ethnic hatred that needs to be recognized in order to be fought.
We've disagreed about a lot of things, but I do agree that the hate-crime laws are unwise.
Entirely random, but in the sidebar, do people who post here get color-coded based on background contrast color-space values indexed by posting frequencies? Aside from Jim, Sasha and Johnathan, it almost seems to work as a theory.
Or are they?
Does the first instance have a higher culpability because Sam is a greater threat to the public at large by indiscriminately murdering persons based on skin color, as opposed to murdering based on individual acts?
Maybe. The argument can be made that the first instance carries a great moral opprobrium because the basis is so indiscriminate. This is similar to the arguments for felony murder. There exists a rational public policy argument that racial or religious based murders are more culpable due to the interests of social harmony.
/Exam answer?
They go to protests proclaiming their support for HAMAS and Hizb'allah. If they support those groups so much, why aren't they shooting Americans more often?
Me, PC?
No, Eugene, you are not PC. You are an admirable man in all respects.
But you did dodge the implication. And the implication had validity.
If we have such latent hostility toward Mexicans, who are pretty benign folks all things considered, I can only imagine the hellfire that would be rained down upon Muslims should this kind of behavior become more commonplace. I think most Muslims, even so-called whacked out ones, realize how thin the ice is in the US. After all, this ain't Holland or France. And besides, I do think--until given reason not to think--that the overwhelming number of US Muslims don't want trouble. Like most folks, they want to be left alone. Further, it's not like US Muslims have the franchise rights to lunacy...we've got plenty of homegrown whackos to trouble us as well.
The argument that preserving social harmony justifies treating threatening speech differently when it is based on race or religion rather than more innocuous disputes lost the day in a speech context (See RAV v City of St Paul, http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-7675.ZC3.html), so why would laws treating racism-based murders differently than you-hit-my-girlfriend murders be constitutional in a murder context? Threatening speech is not protected by the First Amendment any more than murder.
In Justin's hypo, both Sams intended to kill Joe and both did so with premeditation. This is not a question of intent or mens rea. Sam I is being prosecuted for a different crime than Sam II based not on his actions but on the moral opprobrium that is applied to his thoughts.
I’ve wondered about that too. Here is my conjecture. To a certain extent many Muslim terrorists are afraid of pushing the US too far. Once it gets pushed over the line, the US is a very aggressive country, as the Japanese found out-- the hard way. Yamamoto was wise enough to have appreciated this fact, but his superiors wouldn’t listen. Look at our reaction to just the placement of missiles in Cuba—we went right to the brink of unleashing total annihilation upon the Soviet Union. They knew we meant it too. If fact we really scared the pants off the Soviets, their spies told them the US had both the means and the will to destroy them utterly. They were deterred.
The US has the power to make the Middle East into a parking lot and there is nothing the rest of the world can really do about it. It wouldn’t even require nuclear weapons. We could use thermobaric weapons or fuel-air bombs. They work by igniting an explosive mist, which propagates a pressure wave that flattens everything near the epicenter and produces debilitating damage out to a considerable range. Even being in a deep tunnel doesn’t protect you unless it’s airtight because the backpressure wave will draw out the air.
It could be that the Muslim terrorists are so crazy they can’t be deterred, and they will ultimately drive the US off the deep end. Let’s pray this never happens.
Indeed, I think it is a mistake to characterize this as punishing people for their thoughts, or punishing people because of the victims they choose per se. Rather, they are being punished precisely because their intended victims are not just the immediate victims of their violence, but also all the other people they are hoping to terrorize.
To use Justin's example, the precise issue is not whether it is worse for Sam to kill Joe because Joe is black and Sam is a white supremacist, rather than because Joe hit on Sam's girlfriend and Sam is jealous. Rather, the issue would be whether in the first case, Sam was also trying to terrorize other black people in the community by murdering Joe. And again, I have no problem punishing Sam more for the murder of Joe when he intends the murder of Joe to terrorize other black people.
Washington has executed someone in the modern era of the death penalty.
This would seem to be a good use for such a penalty.
The only upside of this incident is that America's jews now have a good necessity defense to the charge of unlawful concealed carry of firearms.
Are you going to take advantage of this new right?
Don't answer that.
I'd have no problem with that, and indeed might prefer it, although this is a complicated topic. Practically, it is mostly a matter of whether you want this to be an element of a crime which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury, or rather a factor under a discretionary sentencing scheme which a judge must find by the preponderance of the evidence. There are various arguments either way as a general matter, but in this case, I'd probably prefer the BRD/jury approach.
Per Contra.
"It Can't Happen Here"
demonstrations and the movement against illegal mexican immigrants have been nearly entirely peaceful and often acknowledge the humanity of the immigrants in spite of not wanting them to violate immigration laws
regardless, if attacks such as this one became more commonplace, it would be very serious considering it would be repeated acts of ethnic violence and as a consequence it would be fair to make sure that there aren't groups in the community responsible for inspiring those ideas (i think cnn has had repeated specials on jihadist ideology groups in england)--the same way it's ok to go after ms-13 or latin kings (though they're obviously a different type of group)..the point of course being that if there are discrete groups within the ethnicity responsible for inspiring violence, they're fair game
as for the hate crime issue, it's very simply solved by just tacking on an intimidation charge to the murder, attempted murder and bevy of other charges this guy will be facing. in fact even arguments by those who favor hate crimes seem to center around the idea that the discriminatory nature of such a crime has a intimidatory effect
I used to think that "we shouldn't punish people for the thoughts they think, just the crimes the commit" before I took criminal law, but I've changed my mind. I think Medis has it right, hate crimes carry something extra. They are murder + terrorism.
It requires a separate act (selecting the victim based only on race) and mindset (a desire to harm/terrorize motivated by racial hatred). Sounds like a full crime to me.
EV says "The law should, I think, treat such crimes with the same severity as it would a similar crime motivated just by a desire to kill random people."
To this I respond that:
1) Truly random killings don't happen that much, and
2) When they do, they might be "hate crimes" in the sense that that they are hate crimes against everyone. But I think it would be better to consider this as some form of domestic terrorism.
The anomoly of the truly random killing aside, what makes you think that punishing racially-motivated crimes more severely is unwise?
That said, I do have one real problem with "hate crime" add-ons to the penal code: Almost invariably establishing the "hate" component of the charge involves examining speech. For example, if a Hispanic man kills an African-American man in a bar room brawl over a woman, should the murderer get an extra five years because he calls the African-American "a fucking nigger"? Should five years be taken off his sentence because the victim precipitated the brawl by calling him a "puto spic"? [By the way, I'm purposefully using both traditionally and contemporaneously taboo words in this post to make a point. If I am in violation of Volokh norms, please feel free to edit.]
You overlook the American people here. There is much history involved.
After a point the American people will not differentiate between Islamic wackoism and Islamic terrorism.
They will demand that non-citizen Muslims in the threat group, i.e., single males under 40, be expelled in mass. And the U.S. govt. will do it.
Some here may think their side's elected officials won't join this stampede.
Because, as Hamas and Hezbollah have repeatedly explained over the years (and which the allegedly pro-terrorism media completely ignores), their dispute is with American government for its support of Israel and illegitimate Middle Eastern regimes, not the American people. As you probably also haven't noticed, Hamas has never killed an American citizen outside the borders of Israel, and Hezbollah hasn't killed an American civilian period since 1984 (22 years ago) as far as I'm able to ascertain.* But those facts are inconvenient to the propaganda line that all terrorists every where are all exactly same and have the exact same goals.
*Arguable exception is CIA agent William Buckley, who was kidnapped in 1984 and died at some point in the next two years whether due to natural causes or murder is unclear, but even then Buckley was clearly a US government employee.
In some countries with a history of severe ethnic hatred (bosnia) I could see a need for increased sentences for hate crimes, i.e., in these countries increased sentences might be more effective against hate crimes than against random murders and the harm of hate crimes much greater (could spark riots). In the US, however, where hate crimes are usually committed either by crazies or rebellious youth if anything a higher sentence is going to be less effective in stopping hate crimes than other sorts of murder. No one who starts randomly shooting jewish people in public is rationally weighing the amount of time they would spend in jail. Also I suspect people who committ hate crimes are way less likely to reoffend when they are released at 50.
Of course we can't decrease the penalty for hate crimes as this would send a message with other harms (it is okay to dislike people for their race) and it is too easy to argue that you were motivated by hate but there surely is no good reason to have an increased sentence.
Yes, some American people are uncivilized enough to recommend such grossly unfair actions. Fortunately, a goodly portion of the American public retain some sense of fairness and justice, and our judicial system would certainly perform its duty as a brake against mass hysteria.
Now you can, as Eugene does think the motive of trying to kill Jews is the same as just randomly killing. I disagree, there is a completely different motive at work, one which is more foul, as it spilts our society into pieces. I have no problem with the hate crime hammer being dropped on this guy.
Are you kidding? This country is so PC-whipped they have nothing to worry about. The most likely group actually to be prosecuted for "hate crimes" is not Muslims but anyone who attacks a Muslim.
There's no need for hate crimes. This incident involves murder, attempted murder and assaults, which probably carry enhanced sentences anyway.
Yes, yes, yes, but if hate crimes laws exist (and terror laws), they should unquestionably be applied in this case.
So... does that mean the American government has not been supporting Israel and illegitimate Middle Eastern regimes since 1984?
For this to be a valid rationale, you would have to prove that Sam wanted to terrorize blacks by killing Sam, not just that he wanted to kill Sam because Sam was black. There is a difference. Otherwise, you can extrapolate every murder to wanting to terrorize people who fit the description of the murder victim, and every murder becomes a "hate crime." (Which, of course, every murder IS, but I thought the point was to distinguish "ordinary" murders from "extraordinary" murders.)
When the guy that beats up an old woman and steals her purse gets hit by a car fleeing the scene, the common response is that he got his just desserts. That is not because we think that his come-uppance will deter future purse snatchers or those who prey on old women, but because of the retributive effect of him getting run down.
Indeed, when the punishment is not severe enough to fit the crime, there is a moral imbalance that cries out for vigilantism to remedy it. Social harmony is preserved by having the punishment fit the crime, even when the punishment has little real possibility of future deterrance.
For a great fictional demonstration of this phenomenon, check out the movie "Unforgiven," directed by Clint Eastwood (who else but Dirty Harry himself). I believe it got the Oscar for Best Picture a few years ago.
Here's the standard crim law counter-example, which I'm sure you've heard before.
Imagine that a basically good guy gets (justifiably) angry and kills someone in a very public case. The Executive knows that he is a good guy, so they work out a deal with the judicial system. They will only pretend to punish this guy. They will take him to jail, give him a new identity, and let him out the back door. It's a given that this guy is basically good and will never sin again, nor will the public ever find out.
I take it that you're OK with this?
After all, "[Punishment] is really just a question of deterance. I personally find the idea that someone 'deserves' a certain amount of punishment absurd. There is never a justification to purposefully increase the amount of suffering in the world. The only reason to punish criminals or punish them longers(sic) is that we believe it reduces the likelihood of future crime."
A, say a jealous husband, shoots B, who he thinks is fooling around with Mrs. A. B dies.
or
A shoots at B, for same reason, but just wings him.
Does anybody here think that A in the second case will get as serious a sentence as A in the first? Of course not. He gets a break for being a bad shot.
Second example of confusion, more directly related to the Seattle case (and going back to the point first raised by Justin Kee, about which sort of criminal is the most dangerous to society:
A, otherwise a solid citizen, thinks his wife is cheating on him and shoots her.
Constrast this with B, an alcoholic petty thief who gets hold of a pistol and goes into a Stop-n-Rob to try to get a few six-packs. All he wants to do is intimidate the clerk long enough to run out with the beer. He's so addled and incompetent, he doesn't even know whether the pistol is loaded or not. It is. Things go wrong, and B shoots a by-stander to death.
Which is more dangerous to society, which shows the most depraved indifference to human life?
I say B, but public opinion and the courts almost always treat A more severely.
We as a society are very, very confused about even common or garden variety homicide. Double that for political murder.
We have posters here who blithely predict a mass deportation of Muslim men, but when a Muslim clerics demand the murder of Jews, we don't even deport them as individuals.
As an example of what I mean, there was a gay man who was mugged and killed in the East Village a couple of years ago. When they caught the guy who did it they immediately charged him with a hate crime for mugging and then killing a gay man. The crime occurred at 4:30 AM on a dark street with nobody else there. Under the circumstances was it a crime of hate or a crime of opportunity? The question was ignored by the media, especially the liberal media. The perp was an addict and was destitute.
The objection to hate crime laws usually comes down to some version of "the victim is just as dead, why should the punishment be less if it was personal" or a riff on that theme -- which is very valid, after the crime.
But the risk to society is very different, and the causes and solutions are very different. If someone is going out to shoot someone specific because of a personal reason (slept with his wife, for example) then, for the most part, the rest of society is relatively safe, unless they have the misfortune to be in the vicinty when the guy opens fire.
If, on the other hand, he just wants to go out and shoot a black person, a Jew, a gay person, a Muslim, etc, then chunks of society are at risk. Whole neighborhoods become unsafe, and the guy may well not stop shooting after he guns down one person.
And yes, dead is dead. I could support the idea of adding a harassment or intimidation charge. Another thing I could support is some provision for extra oversight so that if a community tends to look the other way if, say, a white man kills a black man, or if "faggots just get what they deserve" or something, to ensure that hate crimes get investigated and prosecuted adequately.
I don't support (or not nearly as strongly) the idea of making the punishment stronger if you can add a "hate crime" element to it -- which is not really distinct from domestic terrorism, anyway, unless you only count attacks on government.
And I do think they need to get recorded and reported.
My point was that Hamas and Hezbollah aren't roving the world to kill American civilians and also clearly haven't been making any special effort to kill them. That is by way of answering Daryl Herbert's question, "If they support those groups so much, why aren't they shooting Americans more often?" Hamas and Hezbollah, contrary to endless efforts to suggest otherwise, clearly do not want or intend to inflict violence on American civilians except to the extent that American civilians put themselves in what those organizations consider to be "combat zones" (i.e., Israel, Occuppied Territories, Lebanon). If Hezbollah and Hamas actually were devoted to the general principle of killing Americans for the sake of killing Americans, then obviously they would have been killing Americans in places all over the planet, like al-Qaeda (an organization that *has* actually announced that it is at war with the American people).
The problem with 'hate crimes' is that the 'hate' part takes on a life of its own. For instance, if I go about claiming that "all Swedes have cooties," I may end up being punished for a hate 'crime' even though a reasonable standard would require that I at least assault a Swede with insecticide. This may be more true in academe or business than in the courts, but that's where most of us spend our time.
I don't think this particular murder reveals a Muslim conspiracy, but it does reveal the vector of the Muslim mind. Hatred of non-Muslims, particularly Jews, is part and parcel of Islam. It's hardly surprising when psychological restraints are stripped away, as in the case of this madman, that a Muslim acts on that hate.
That said, exactly how crazy is this Muslim and the other Muslims killers and wannabe killers such as the LAX shooter and the Tar Pit driver? None of them were so deranged as to pick strong targets. This Muslim targeted women, not men nor police officers nor soldiers. The LAX shooter targeted the ticket agent girl at the El Al counter and her customers, all of whom he was sure to be unarmed. The Tarpit Driver went for students sitting outside. If these guys were really crazy, wouldn't their targets be selected a bit more randomly? A really crazy person would pick a target that could defend itself.
The most disturbing aspect of this murder, and the other publicized murders in America by Muslims, is that their hate recognizes no constraint with respect to age nor gender. It is a feral Neanderthal hate that targets young women in their twenties, even pregnant women. That's the hate that drives suicide bombers and Hezbollah missile launchers. It won't be defeated by reason but by overwhelming force.
Tantor
I have no problem with requiring proof in the form of admissible evidence, and I agree that simply pointing to the different characteristics of the criminal and victim does not constitute proof.
Of course, if someone goes to the Jewish Federation, and actually declares, "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel," and then starts shooting--you probably have your proof.
I agree you have your proof there but you still have to get past the insanity defense although to my mind committing a hate crime such as this one would almost require being insane but that is just my opinion.
The point I was making and that jgshapiro was making is that absent absolute proof, hate crimes are just crimes since you cannot prove otherwise. For you to make them hate crimes I think you have to have a whole lot better proof than just coincidence of racial differences or sexual orientation differences or national origin differences.
Now we have a bunch of folks coming here and bringing it with them.
==========================================
Hizbollah is a world wide terror organization that has declared war on the USA. See what they did in Argentina. Then go back to sleep.
[T]he risk to society is very different, and the causes and solutions are very different. If someone is going out to shoot someone specific because of a personal reason (slept with his wife, for example) then, for the most part, the rest of society is relatively safe, unless they have the misfortune to be in the vicinty when the guy opens fire.
If, on the other hand, he just wants to go out and shoot a black person, a Jew, a gay person, a Muslim, etc, then chunks of society are at risk. Whole neighborhoods become unsafe, and the guy may well not stop shooting after he guns down one person.
All this is true, but somewhat misses the point. "[A] black person, a Jew, a gay person, a Muslim, etc."? There are a lot of possibilities locked up in that "etc." that are not codified in any hate-crime legislation I know of. If someone should take it into his head to kill anyone who shops at Wal-Mart, say, is it a hate crime or isn't it? Certainly a broad swath of the populace is targeted, but it's not a "protected category" sort of swath, is it?
Then there's the most obvious difficulty: What do you do with the murderer who simply likes killing people and doesn't particularly bother with categories? Obviously someone who just likes shooting people is even more dangerous to society at large than someone who likes shooting people only if they're black, or gay, or female, or Jewish. But is he a "hate criminal"?
Everyone seems to agree that just differing racial or sexual orientation would not be enough.
Plenty of crimes have increased punishment depending on the identity of the victim and/or the motivation of the crime. To the extent they are elements of the crime, or would result in higher punishment, they must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
I would make a joke about this guy, but it's just tooeasy.
Your fantasies that the eeeevvvilll Ay-rabs are coming to kill us all are as inaccurate as ever, M. Simon. Please provide a single citation to Hezbollah declaring war on the US. And, assuming Hezbollah was behind the Argentinian bombings (which Hezbollah denies, although it is perfectly willing to take credit for plenty of other attacks), they happened in 1992 and 1994, and weren't targeted at Americans. And, you might take note, there haven't been any further attacks in 12 years. At that rate it's more rational for the average American to plan their retirement around winning the lottery than it is to worry about Hezbollah coming to shoot them in their jammies.
I absolutely agree that mere differences between criminals and victims should not count as proof.
Incidentally, the criminal defense of insanity usually requires a lot more than the ordinary sense of that term. It depends a bit on the jurisdiction, but so far this guy doesn't sound insane in the legal sense.
Let's see what you think when a Muslim kills your wife and kids simply because they are Jews, or Christians or simply non-Muslims. We are in a war of annihilation -- it's just that some of us don't know it yet.
And yet, we don't sentence people to being hit by cars. For the life of me, I can't figure out why!
But lets face it, in America most anti-semetic attacks have been perpetrated by white males. No one sounded a concern about how dangerous white males are.
You seem to have forgotten the "militia" craze during Clinton's term. Granted, that is a subset of white men, but craaaazy Muslims are a subset of Muslims (a significant one, at that).
Hamas and Hezbollah aren't roving the world to kill American civilians and also clearly haven't been making any special effort to kill them
I'll buy that. Especially, in the short term, it is not in Hizb'allah's interest to make war on America. I notice you left off the "PLO" from the list of groups that haven't killed Americans around the world (because, of course, they have).
But are their ideological supporters considering that, or are they just hearing the "Great Satan" talk, perhaps with a bit of bin Ladenism thrown in? It doesn't seem like such a big leap from supporting HAMAS to supporting bin Laden. And even though Hizb'allah is Shi'ite, you don't have to be a Sunni to have bin Laden's viewpoint towards America (as the Great Satan, which should be attacked).
Why would it be good to carry out Jihad against American forces in Iraq, but not to carry out Jihad against Americans in America--aside from tactical considerations about America's response?
Consider: the problem that many people have with the concept of "hate crimes" is that it's a bad idea to force the law to deal with ideas and motivations; the very concept necessitates that the law become an arbitrator of ideas in order to choose which ideas/motivations qualify as "hateful".
Well, I see a LOT of people treating this guy as prima facie a terrorist on the grounds of his ideas (he's a Muslim).
It seems to me that those who opposed the concept of "hate crimes" might end up supporting the same idea via the back door -- except now it's called "terrorism". Kill a man, you're a murderer, to be dealt with by the ordinary criminal law constrained by the Constitution. But get defined as a "terrorist", and that all changes.
For me, the concept of "terrorism" is essentially: war by non-state actors (i.e. those not part of a formal enemy army). The concept "war" (as in "war on terrorism") presumes that there is nonethless hostile government(s) involvement; criminals, on the other hand, are not considered technically "at war" with their victims or the police, in part because it's understood that they are acting as individuals.
If, therefore, there is no evidence of foreign support, then what we are dealing with here is a murderer, a criminal, who happens to have Muslim delusions instead of those originating in some other religion. Even a home-grown violent organization, such as the Earth Liberation Front, is still properly considered under criminal law as "organized crime", not as "terrorists".
This doesn't mean that ideological factors aren't important. Cults, for example, are properly scrutinized as a source of violence. But legally, I am very uncomfortable with the idea of evaluating "terrorism" by ideas and motivations instead of the presence or absence of foreign government involvement.
As one with libertarian leanings, I agree that it seems a bad idea to punish an act more severely based on the thought behind the act. The counterexample that I can't get away from is comparing hooligans who set fire to a randomly chosen rosebush or mailbox to the local KKK chapter who sets fire to a cross on the front lawn of the newly moved in black family in a white neighborhood. Same amount (roughly) of objective damage, but way more damage to society in the second instance. I can see probation and restitution as punishment for the hooligans, and a couple of years in a rough prison with lots of black inmates for the KKK guys.
But there is a sense wherein someone committing random violence is not due “the usual”, and certainly not a “special painful treatment.” This isthe sense that they have abandoned humanity and become like a mad dog. A mod dog should not be flayed for its crimes, just shot with unusual dispatch.
The problem is always, of course, who gets to play Atticus.
2. The Seattle shooter has been charged with first-degree murder, the maximum penalty being life without parole. Damn.
Yet in my state, prosecutors have to prove motive to win cases.
But Jews are available to attack in the U.S. for Muslims raised elsewhere who go postal. So they do.
Such people cannot be deterred. They're nuts. The additional penalties for hate crimes won't deter them.
The only way to prevent such attacks in the U.S. is to keep out Muslim nutballs raised in Muslim majority countries. They are generally under 40, always male, almost always unmarried, and almost always have discernible records of undesirable behavior - mental treatment, criminal records, are unemployed or unemployed school dropouts, etc.
It is certainly feasible to track resident alien Muslim males under 40, and to track their W-2's, student registration status.
But nothing will be done to this end until the American people are so riled up by repeated Seattle/LAX type incidents that they demand the expulsion of all resident alien Muslim males under 40 or so.
This would certainly be overkill. And it will happen because more effective lesser means won't be tried before it is too late.
As for you lefties who think this can't happen, consider that it was Democratic elected officials who led the charge against the Dubai ports deal.
Consider someone who mails a threatening letter in an attempt to make someone fearful. For example, it might read: "Bitch, if I ever catch you outside your house, I'm going to rape you and then slit your throat and bury your body so deep that they never find you. So if you ever see me, you better run."
Has this person committed a crime at all? Would you want to see this person punished?
If you say yes, then you are already on board with the basic logic that I expressed above. Here, of course, the underlying act (mailing a letter) isn't a crime at all. But if it had been a crime--an act of vandalism, an assault, a murder, or so on--the logic would be the same: a person can be punished for the act of trying to create such fear in others.
And so it is simply a mistake to claim this logic depends on punishing people for their thoughts or ideas. It remains true that they are being punished for their acts, and simply requires the recognition that not all acts which fit a general description (mailing a letter, killing a person, etc.) are necessarily identical to each other.
There is a difference between "thoughts" in the sense of mens rea or or premeditation, and "thoughts" in the sense of motive. That I intended to kill someone matters because it differentiates murder from manslaughter. But WHY I wanted to kill them should not matter.
Moreover, calling another argument an "obvious strawman" does nothing to make your argument more persuasive.
Finally, citing a threatening act as an example of how thoughts can be punished is a category error, because everyone concedes that an attempt to intimidate can be a crime by itself, even when not coupled with any follow through on the threat. The issue is whether it matters WHY your perp mailed the letter. Did he dislike the "bitch" personally? Did he want the street clear so that he could commit another crime without witnesses? Did he hate all women? Who cares! The crime is the same, regardless.
I don't think we are far from agreement. If you agree that an attempt to intimidate can be a crime by itself, then do you also agree that a criminal attempt to intimidate can be joined with another crime? So, you could have a crime against property or a person which was also an attempt to intimidate.
For example, rather than writing a letter, the person above spraypaints the same message on the person's car. Would you be opposed to charging this person both with the attempt to intimidate and with the damage to property?
Unfortunately, even with that oddly narrow criterion, you forget the 1994 Alas Airlines bombing in Panama; three Americans were killed.
You say: "Prosecute it as 'criminal threatening' or as 'terrorism', but don't enhance the sentence for vandalism with thought crimes."
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but it might be helpful for us to discuss why you think it is preferable to treat threatening/terrorism as a separate crime, rather than an aggravating factor for the underlying crime.
In this discussion, it might be helpful for us to consider some other things that are sometimes used as aggravating factors. For example, in homicides, the killing of a police officer might be used as an aggravating factor. Other common aggravating factors include: committing a murder for hire; using a means of murder which involves torture or other serious physical abuse; killing someone who was particularly vulnerable due to age (old or young) or infirmity; or using a means which put others besides the victim in serious danger.