Something happened recently at a town very close to mine that has me thinking again about what is a hate crime. Two 16 year old boys attacked a younger boy, 14 years old. The targeted boy had Down's Syndrome. He also had an iPhone in his possession, and the assailants robbed him of that. Now: under the relevant state's laws, as I understand them (I speak off the cuff here) -- IF the older boys, whom I will simply call AH, because I don't use crude phrases for the sphincter in this august blog -- if they attacked him because of who he was, because he has Down's Syndrome, that is a hate crime, and they can be punished as adults. On the other hand, if they attacked him just to steal the iPhone: that is garden variety theft, and they will be punished if caught under the juvenile justice system in play. I shall of course make no effort to defend or mitigate the AHness of the two AHes. If anything happened at all along the lines reported, their behavior was thoroughly...