This Really Takes the Bacon! By Charles Taylor

     This is all true, I swear to it on a big breakfast of bacon and eggs: a man gets 15 years in prison, plus another 15 years’ probation, to be served after his prison sentence, for leaving bacon on the doorstep of a mosque in Florida:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslim-hate-crime-bacon-mosque-man-jailed-15-years-michael-wolfe-florida-a8098926.html
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/09/florida-man-convicted-hate-crime-bacon-mosque-smashing-windows-15-years-prison/

“A man who broke into a mosque and left a slice of raw bacon has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Michael Wolfe from Titusville in Florida pleaded guilty to the break-in at the Islamic Society of Central Florida Masjid Al-Munin Mosque in January 2016.
CCTV footage shows the 37-year-old smashing windows and lights with a machete before leaving bacon by the front door.
Wolfe pleaded guilty to criminal mischief to a place of worship with a hate crime enhancement on Tuesday, after a plea deal was arranged with the mosque and the police.

A spokesman for the State Attorney’s Office, Todd Brown, told Florida Today: “He entered a plea deal and plead guilty to vandalising the mosque itself with hate crime enhancement, making it a felony.”

     Thus, the crime involved vandalism, which has a much less penalty, but the strip of bacon made it a hate crime.
     One wonders what penalty he would have got for doing the vandalism that he did, but leaving say: (1) Hala meat
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bushtelegraph/halal/5843904or (2) vegetarian products, instead of religiously offensive pig products. Say, the accused intended to leave pig products, but made a mistake of fact – would there be an offence of an “attempt to conduct a hate crime”? Attempts, or inchoate crimes, such as attempted murder, consist of two elements: (1) an intent to engage in crime, and (2) conduct constituting a substantial step towards commission of the crime. Yet, if the meat was of the wrong type, then the second condition cannot even in principle be met. This is an instance of attempting to do the impossible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossibility_defense

     There are cases about this here in America, but I don’t know about Australian law. Maybe Mr Wilson could write on this point.
Thus, bacon is the problem, making this a felony hate crime. Perhaps we will see a ban of bacon and pig products in Western societies in the future, along with alcohol, because, following the logic of gun banning, if there were no pig products or alcohol in society, race-haters could not use these products for their mischief. Makes sense. Ban guns, and also ban bacon and the like.

     I am not necessarily saying that this banning is a bad thing in our multicultural and diverse society, although the pig, wine and grog industry would be outraged, perhaps.