what's a terrorist?
I admit that I spent the better part of an hour yesterday afternoon just staring at cable news, including the BBC, watching the mostly repetitive coverage of the person armed with SUV and knives who mowed down pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge in London, smashed into the gate, and then got out and stabbed a police officer to death. Clearly his
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Are all crimes essentially hate crimes?
I would venture that no, many are simply crimes of desperation.
But then, are all crimes at least partly crimes of desperation?
Possibly also no, though the first potential-counterexample to come to mind is from a work of fiction, the Swedish book _Men Who Hate Women_, bringing us back around to hate crimes.
Another possible category could be "revenge crimes", which also occur in that trilogy/series* (about Lisbeth Salander).
Another obvious category is "accidental", or "crimes of negligence", such as, in a very small and somewhat hypothetical example, "failure to check for fingers, when closing a car door". A larger example might include "criminally-negligent manslaughter". According to Wikipedia**, the accused must have owed a duty (such as "checking for fingers, when closing a car door", or "avoiding intoxication while operating a vehicle") to the injured party.
Another interesting aspect of criminal law is that it seems there must be an injured party, and the magnitude of the effect(s) on the injured/affected party seems to be more important, in measuring the magnitude of a crime and in meting out a sentence, than the magnitude of the potential harm that might have been done, or the apparent likelihood of such potential harms. That is, our system of law seems to see the world as being deterministic rather than probabilistic or statistically-oriented/explained. By way of (hypothetical, fictional) contrast, consider the Ninth Doctor's perspective, in the episode Dalek, when he claims that he had killed Rose, despite her obviously still being alive, saying "I killed her once. I can't do it again."*** My interpretation is that he considers himself guilty despite not only his regrets at the time and since but also despite the eventual effects of his actions.
* While I prefer, at present, to acknowledge only the three published by Stieg Larson, I still also like to think that there may have been some truth in the the rumour that his gf/partner may have had a draft for a fourth book, which she hadn't/hasn't released for publication due to his formal family (relatives) not including her. Somehow, it seems fittingly topical.
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter
*** http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fNOOgV2aNXgJ:www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/27-6.htm
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