Two votes by the City Council show the struggle going on between politicians seeking to divide the community and those seeking to unite it.

The council shot down an attempt to create another batch of thought crimes – or hate crimes as they call them. Liberals voted for the measure but conservative members of the council voted to sink the measure.

Crimes are crimes, whether the perpetrator loves or hates the victim. In this case, the proposed law was so ridiculous it would have made littering a hate crime.

Adding “hate” to make the punishment worse put an impossible burden on prosecutors to prove the state of a person’s mind. It also is pointless because the victims suffers no more regardless of the state of mind.

Illustrating the difficulty this liberal nonsense creates, however, is the fact that the council also voted to create a memorial at a place where three people were shot to death.

Why? Murders occur almost every day. Liberals claim Jacksonville is the “murder capital” of Florida.

If the deaths of three people requires a memorial, what about the deaths of 12 people?

In 1990, a crazed criminal named James Edward Pough shot and killed nine people at the General Motors Acceptance Co. in Baymeadows. He also had killed two other people a day earlier, shot two others, and robbed a store.

After his killing spree, Pough killed himself.

This was a failure of government. Pough had murdered someone years before, but was allowed to escape punishment by pleading guilty to a minor offense rather than murder. This far preceded the current wave of injustice by pro-crime liberal prosecutors who are turning violent criminals loose on the public.

But it was the worst murder in the city in terms of victims. Why does that not require a memorial so that “no one forgets”?

Everyone knows why. It is because liberals seek to portray people with black skin – suckh as Pough — as perpetual victims who need the protection of the Democrat Party, and people with white skin as oppressors.

But historically the white oppressors have been members of the Democrat Party who supported slavery, segregation and socialism. This is their attempt to revise history rather than apologizing for the part they have played.

In  this case, it is true the council merely voted to allow one Democrat to spend money in her district from a slush fund.

Still, while the council deserves credit for rejecting the creation of more “hate” crimes it should have given a little more thought to the rationale for the proposed memorial.