Free Republic

On June 20, 2002, the United States Supreme Court decreed, in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, that the mildly mentally retarded were categorically exempt from capital punishment, reasoning that fully functional adults of diminished mental capacity were as a matter of law not as culpable for their acts. Writing eloquently in dissent, Justice Scalia drew a sharp distinction between the severely mentally retarded (who are truly not responsible for their actions), and the merely stupid (the category into which Mr. Atkins undoubtedly fell). Scalia argued forcefully that, with respect to the merely stupid, at least sometimes they deserve to...

Now that a decent interval has passed since the moving tributes and funeral of the late Ronald Reagan, maybe it's time to comment on something unseemly that took place before the late president was laid to rest. There was Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of Great Britain, standing next to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thatcher recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America – not her own flag. Schwarzenegger, an American running the executive branch of government of the largest state in the union, did not. I didn't notice it when it took...