House expected to pass anti-lynching bill that Rep. Bobby Rush says is decades overdue
wapoAUG 2021
This is a long time coming, and sends a message that America is finally ready to reckon with a dark moment in its history. The bill is a historic one, coming to terms with how lynching was used to enforce a racial social order, and America will now have greater means to reject this in the future.
While the intentions behind this are admirable, expanding the number of things the federal government can prosecute as hate crimes is dangerous, as it risks endangering other liberties, such as freedom of speech, and the DOJ tends to have an overzealous approach to enforcing such laws. This bill also indirectly expands the federal death penalty.
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