MIDDLE OF THE RIGHT; GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE HATCH SUPPORTS HATE CRIME LAWS, FREE MARKET.Byline: Scott Holleran It's hardly surprising that Utah Sen. and GOP 2000 presidential candidate Orrin Hatch Orrin Grant Hatch (born March 22, 1934) is a Republican United States Senator from Utah, serving since 1977. Hatch is a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, where he serves on the subcommittees on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure and Taxation and IRS sees no contradiction between his role as one of Microsoft's chief opponents and his claim to be a staunch defender of free market ideas. The powerful Senate Judiciary Committee The U.S. Senate established the Committee on the Judiciary on December 10, 1816, as one of the original 11 standing committees. It is also one of the most powerful committees in Congress; among its wide range of jurisdictions is investigation of federal judicial nominees and oversight of chairman, first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976 as a conservative, has established a string of leftish laws. Fellow Republicans may not remember that the Pittsburgh, Pa.-born Hatch, 65, is the founding father of America's hate crime laws, and free speech proponents may have forgotten that Hatch proposed a complete ban on burning the American flag. The strict Mormon, who is a close friend and ally of national health care champion Sen. Ted Kennedy For other persons named Ted Kennedy, see Ted Kennedy (disambiguation). Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (born February 22, 1932) is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. , D-Mass., is most decidedly mixed on health care; the early Reagan supporter was one of the most ardent behind-the-scenes lieutenants for the landmark 1996 Kennedy-Kassebaum health care legislation, perhaps the biggest single increase of government intervention in the medical profession since Medicare was passed in 1965. The man who took on Microsoft may be acutely aware of his own power, but he is fully detached from the intellectual struggle within his own party. If there is a war for the soul of the Republican Party - and deep discontent among its rank and file members, who sense that GOP leaders are bereft of convictions, eager to compromise and indistinguishable from Democrats - Orrin Hatch is one party leader who has no intention of fighting. Q. Is health care a right? A. I don't think it's a fundamental right. If you start that, then you get into all kinds of other issues that people want that are not fundamental rights. Q. Do you view proliferation of managed care plans as a free-market phenomenon or are HMOs and PPOs dominating employer-based health care due to government intervention? A. Government intervention. Look, the people who are most critical of the HMO HMO health maintenance organization. HMO n. A corporation that is financed by insurance premiums and has member physicians and professional staff who provide curative and preventive medicine within certain financial, system today happen to be the people who created it; Ted Kennedy and other left-wingers who basically thought we should go to a government-subsidized, managed care approach. Q. You voted for the highly restrictive Kennedy-Kassebaum health care bill . . . A. I'm the one who probably made it less onerous. We were in the Republican conference for months and you couldn't get the House and Senate together. I sat there listening all that time and, finally, I spoke up and said, look, if you want to have a bill, here's what you've got to do.' And (the Kennedy-Kassebaum law) is what they did. I would have preferred a better system because that (law) has far too much government in it, but it was the only system that would pass which would alleviate some problems. Q. Do you share Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback's view that there ought to be a permanent Senate committee on the deterioration of American culture? A. No. We've been doing an excellent job on the Judiciary Committee Judiciary Committee may refer to:
Q. Which ones? A. (Rock group) Marilyn Manson
Brian Hugh Warner (born January 5, 1969), better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson, is an American musician and artist known for his outrageous stage persona and image as the lead singer of the on CDs. It's vicious stuff. Let's take some of the video games that teach the kid to kill, maim maim v. to inflict a serious bodily injury, including mutilation or any harm which limits the victim's ability to function physically. Originally, in English Common Law it meant to cut off or permanently cripple a bodily member like an arm, leg, hand, or foot. , rape and murder. Q. Do you favor absolute free speech on the Internet? A. Very few things are absolute. Free speech is limited under the Constitution. You can't yell `fire' in a crowded theater. Q. You can if there is a fire or if you think there's a fire, right? A. Look, I'm talking I'm Talking was a 1980s Australian funk-pop rock band, noted for launching vocalist Kate Ceberano. History After the break-up of the Melbourne-based experimental funk band Essendon Airport in 1983, members Robert Goodge (guitar), Ian Cox (saxophone) and Barbara Hogarth about a situation where you're saying it to try and stampede stam·pede n. 1. A sudden frenzied rush of panic-stricken animals. 2. A sudden headlong rush or flight of a crowd of people. 3. people and there's no fire and you know it - I'm talking about criminal activity. You can't deface de·face tr.v. de·faced, de·fac·ing, de·fac·es 1. To mar or spoil the appearance or surface of; disfigure. 2. To impair the usefulness, value, or influence of. 3. a public building with free speech words. There are other things that you literally cannot do under the First Amendment. Q. Will you take a pledge that, as president, you will never tax the Internet? A. When you talk in terms of absolutes, I'm uncomfortable doing that. I prefer not to tax the Internet. There's a good argument that there has to be some accommodation there so that the Internet doesn't get off scot-free on taxes. If you talk to the average retailer on the street, they're worried sick that people are just going to buy everything (on) the Internet and not come to their stores. If everything goes through a tax-free exchange tax-free exchange An exchange of assets between taxpayers in which any gain or loss is not recognized in the period during which the exchange takes place. Rather, taxpayers are required to adjust the basis of assets exchanged. on the Internet, the Internet, the, international computer network linking together thousands of individual networks at military and government agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, industrial and financial corporations of all sizes, and commercial enterprises states lose tax revenue. These are issues that have to be resolved. Sooner or later, we have to face that (question.) On the Microsoft case, I've argued that it's better to solve some of these problems now than to have the government come in later and start regulating the Internet. Q. Is a monopoly when no one else can enter the marketplace? A. A monopoly is a situation where you not only control an industry but you also crush anyone who tries to enter the market. Q. Does a company have a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to eliminate competition? A. You can be a monopoly in an industry as long as you're not stifling competition. Q. Isn't Wal-Mart trying to stifle its competition? A. Wal-Mart's trying to beat its competition. Q. What's the difference between beating and stifling one's competition? A. Well, when you control the underlying operating system operating system (OS) Software that controls the operation of a computer, directs the input and output of data, keeps track of files, and controls the processing of computer programs. that everybody else has to use and you start dictating what kind of products they can sell and what kind of systems they can have and you start putting bugs in a system so they won't function on your operating platform so those companies cannot compete, you're operating a monopoly. Q. Isn't tampering tampering The adulteration of a thing. See Drug tampering. with a product - such as installing a computer virus or bug - already prohibited by law? A. Not really. Take RealNetworks. The top guy came and testified before our committee. They were the leading streaming software company. He said that, because Microsoft wanted to get into the streaming business, they put a bug in their program that made his incompatible with their program. Assuming that's true, that gives Microsoft a monopoly; 90 percent or more control of the underlying operating system or platform upon which RealNetworks has to work. By putting in a bug that made RealNetworks incompatible, it's using and exploiting its monopoly power to savage a competitor and that, under the anti-trust laws, is wrong. That's just one example. There are dozens of others. Q. You championed hate crime statistics laws. Now we have several proposals for hate crime laws. On what grounds should the state compile statistics on so-called hate crimes? A. The Hate Crime Statistics Act The Hate Crime Statistics Act, 28 USC 534, requires the Attorney General to collect data on crimes committed because of the victim's race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. The bill was signed into law by George H. W. has now proven that we have a lot of hate crimes in our society. Q. What is a hate crime? A. Basically, it's a crime against humanity In international law a crime against humanity is an act of persecution or any large scale atrocities against a body of people, and is the highest level of criminal offense. . Q. Isn't any crime a crime against humanity? A. I think so, but hate crimes are crimes that are really motivated by race. Q. What about sexual orientation sexual orientation n. The direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes, especially a direction seen to be dictated by physiologic rather than sociologic forces. ? Gender? Does any characteristic qualify? A. It's hard to say if you put gender in there it's a real problem because then all rapes would be a hate crime. All crime can be categorized as a hate crime. Q. Why do we need a special hate crime status? A. We don't - well, we need the hate crime statistics because it's important for us to be able to let the American people An American people may be:
Q. Why is that the state's responsibility? A. So that we can bring to the public's attention that there are things going on that shouldn't be going on. Look, I'm not an advocate of hate crime legislation. There are instances that almost everybody can agree constitutes a hate crime. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Presidential hopeful Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, center, speaks with supporters during a breakfast Friday. Joel Page/Associated Press |
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