Arson hits Palin church while kids inside

[Black Landlord]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/1...7513.shtml

My money's on some sort of twisted Tanya-Harding-esque inside job.

[Doc]

Clearly it was the "witches" hiding inside of those kids.

[MacGurl]

Gov. Sarah Palin's home church was badly damaged by arson, leading the governor to apologize if the fire was connected to "undeserved negative attention" from her failed campaign as the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Lord, don't let this turn into an us vs. them argument. It would more likely be some bored 14 year olds, looking for a thrill, thinking they were doing something "radical".

[Don Kiyoti]

Ladies craft group was inside; all adults, no injuries.

[mstudio]

Actually, I really don't care one way or the other, but it did say there were two kids inside.

"The fire was set Friday night while a handful of people, including two children, were inside, according to Central Mat-Su Fire Chief James Steele. No one was injured."


I'm just sayin'

[Gutenberg]

I'm with MacGurl--I think it was a teenaged something to while away the long night. If there was something political to it, then it should be prosecuted as a hate crime and a big fat heavy book should be thrown at the perps.

[freeradical]

Gutenberg wrote:
If there was something political to it, then it should be prosecuted as a hate crime and a big fat heavy book should be thrown at the perps.

What is it with you folks who think that the idea of a "hate crime" is a good idea? Arson is arson, and that is a crime that carries a pretty severe penalty on it's own. If anyone had died in the fire, the penalty would of course be even more severe. If the perpetrator was an adult, he/she would end up in jail - or possibly even executed - for the rest of their life for murder/manslaughter. That seems good enough for me.

[AlphaDog]

I've got to agree with freeradical on this one. The truth is that virtually every crime could be redefined in some way to fit the phrase 'hate crime.' "I robbed you because I hate you because you have more money than I do." To apply it too liberally would reduce its effectiveness in prosecuting crimes that were truly based on hatred, be that race, gender, or ethnicity.

[Gutenberg]

Let me turn your diatribe on its head, freeradical: What is it with you people who think torching churches for political ends is an ordinary garden-variety crime? It's an act of domestic terrorism and needs to be treated as such.

[AlphaDog]

Gutenberg wrote:
Let me turn your diatribe on its head, freeradical: What is it with you people who think torching churches for political ends is an ordinary garden-variety crime? It's an act of domestic terrorism and needs to be treated as such.

Being very serious here, could you give me an example of something that has fallen into that category, and I mean in the U. S. for this particular purpose? (I can certainly think of recent examples in Iraq.) I can't recall an incident like that offhand, but I am becoming increasingly plagued by senior moments!

Plus, I thought that if something like what you describe was done purely with political motives in mind that it fell under the domestic terrorism statutes. I do think of statutes for hate crimes and statutes for terrorism as having some intrinsic differences, although both are certainly hateful.