Posted on 03/06/2010 8:12:24 AM PST by JoeProBono
It’s either one of the more brazen and courageous judicial rulings we’ve heard of in a long time, or one of the most ill-considered examples of judicial activism we’ve heard of in a long time.
Your take on it will likely depend on your take on the death penalty. The news is this, and it’s pretty striking:
A state district judge in Houston granted a pretrial motion declaring the death penalty unconstitutional.
The ruling, made by State District Judge Kevin Fine, came in response to a motion filed by lawyers for a man accused of fatally shooting a Houston woman and wounding her sister on June 16, 2008. The lawyers had argued the procedures surrounding death-penalty jury instructions in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure violate the Eighth and 14th Amendments prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment and guaranteeing the right of due process.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Yeah, here we go....can’t make rational decisions....blah blah blah....guilty of poor judgment....blah blah blah....immature.....blah blah blah.....lost youth....blah blah blah....inability to understand future regrets....blah blah blah.....How many verses are in this lament sung by the poor saps suffering from tat envy?
What do you win for that? Another Cracker Jacks Captain Magnificent ring?
Other than getting rip-roaring drunk with a bunch of pals and waking up the next morning with a tattoo ... Permanent marking of the body to commemmorate something ... deeper reasons underlie it, and I know my tatted loved ones well enough to see it for what it is. They do it for someone else, not for themselves, and they do it because they lacked the self-confidence NOT to do it. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there's something wrong about seeing a spade and calling it a diamond.
As for your "real biker," if he's laughing, then it sounds to me like he's ridden in a limited circle. Does he take his bike to a mechanic when it busts down, or fix it himself? Did he build it himself? If so ... great, but I KNOW that the real, hands-on guys who bike because they love BIKING and could give a sh*t about the bad-boy image, don't have or need tattoos, earings, ponytails, and other gimmicks. The irony is that the specific guys I have in mind who I know ranging from really, really well to moderately well, HARDLY fall into the category of "good boys"!!!! I admit there are also a few who have tattoos who I consider real bikers, but I know them well and know why they have the tattoos ... basically, to make a specific impression on other people because they don't have the self-confidence to realize that they don't NEED the tatts. It's their way of broadcasting that they're rebels, as if anybody cares.
But I wonder ... will Obamacare or Romneycare include tattoo removal?
Tattoos tell a lot about a person. I didn't just pull these conclusions out of my ass, you know. They came from about 35 years of being around a lot of tattooed people in a lot of different venues, including several who are very, very close to me. Can't say their tattoos ever made me angry. Disgusted, sad, amused, yes, but angry ... nope. Now, if one of them tied me down and forced a tattoo on me, THEN I'd be angry.
Your anger towards me is pretty clear, on the other hand. Objects of pity are often made angry by those who pity them. And I pity folks who mark their bodies with tattoos because I KNOW too many of them very, very well. This isn't ivory-tower stuff, dear. It's conclusion drawn from long observation.
[^)
Get back to me in 20 years about that one! One woman finds herself then invited to a social function where she wants to make the impression she chooses at the time and has the physical freedom to do so ... and another woman with tattoos who knows they'll rightly reveal something about her past she'd NOW just as soon keep private, is in bondage to her tattoos, a slave to her past. People with tattoos limit their own choices. Not much to envy there ... you crack me up! More insight into the tattooed mentality. Like the naive and gullible gal I knew who dated a guy with -- I kid you not -- tattooed EYEBROWS, which I saw when I met him and thought, "Uh oh! Red Flag!" but kept it to myself. My stars, WHAT A SURPRISE (not!!!) a few months later when it turns out the guy not only had a whole 'nother girlfriend on the side for the year-plus they'd been going together, but had a kid by her!
Tattoo envy! [^)) Thanks for the giggle.
Some people brag about their neurosis by inking it on their arms. Others aren’t as brave about it and do it by playing psychologist on the internet. lol
Is his foot a giant baseball?
More honestly, psychologists are hired to help people understand themselves and cease behaviors that are causing them problems, hence I'm pretty far from "playing psychologist." I'm expressing opinion of human nature based on observation with regard to tattoos, of which I've had some longtime experience, and writing about it here. If you think that's "playing psychologist," then you're ignorant of what psychology is. If you think that's playing "human nature observer and commentator," then you'd be CORRECTAMUNDO! That's exactly what I'm doing in this discussion.
What exactly are YOU doing, other than setting yourself up to be so squarely in the middle and blameless (by finding fault in both the tattooed and the untattooed who call bullsh*t on tattoos) that you're practically angelic?
Your California psycho-babble let you down.
Maybe you can explain to me why tribes allover the world have been getting them for centuries. Hmmm I guess they don't share your reasoning either....
I think the tattooed judge out to be replaced too by the way & I believe in the death penalty.
I think the tattooed judge out to be replaced too by the way & I believe in the death penalty. Ought to read
I think the tattooed judge ought to be replaced & I believe in the death penalty.
Wow, these scathing responses to you are a ringing endorsement of your prescient comments. Old Ben was right.
“The sting of criticism is the truth of it.” ~ Ben Franklin.
My (EX) brother-in-law tried unsuccessfully to remove his youthful indiscretion of a tatt which says “Born to Raise Hell.”
Forever branded.
Haven’t spoken to him in years and don’t plan to ever again :::shudder::: since he tried to facilitate the death of my sister, but glad to hear of your solution.
Everyone has an opinion about tattoos, it seems. I guess that’s what this thread is for.
It saddens me to see them, can’t help it. I’m an artist and do understand (sort of) using your skin as canvas, or to make a statement. But it still makes me incredibly sad, especially on young women. So temporal, so cynical. So sub-culture.”:^(
As for tats. I tell anyone who asks me if they should get one to think long & hard before they get one. Make sure you can live with what you are inking on your body. Since it is common to get more after your first one you need to make sure all of them will look good together. I stuck to butterflies & flowers. However I've seen girls with tribal art, fairies & names. Not my cup of tea. But to each their own. I also try to tell girls to get them where they can show them if they wish & cover them for work etc. I think tats are here to stay. So many people have them now. More then you would think. Some women just have their little secret one & you would never know it is there. Dermablend is a good way to cover them. What bothers me is the fact so many people don't think long & hard before getting them. What you get at 18 may not be what you want at 30.
This thread is really about Judge Fine,a state district judge in Houston who granted a pretrial motion declaring the death penalty unconstitutional before it was derailed by bikers & tattoos. Judge Fine just happens to be all inked up.
Thank you ~ no apology necessary!
My little sister did marry him BECAUSE of his bad-boy image, tat and all.
Boy, does she regret it, even though she was stridently warned.
She’s living proof of the saying, “That’s what ‘the rest of your life’ is for, to make up for mistakes.”
We all make mistakes, it is part of life. I think that when little sisters are told not to do something they seem to want to do it more. I was the little sister & I drove my brother & parents crazy. I don’t mind making mistakes, I just hate making the same ones over again. I try to learn from them.
Even then I got that tattoos were a form of permanent self-sabotage, and even then my own vanity wasn't such to think I'd be the exception. God only knows where that uncharacteristic wisdom came from, as I sure didn't have it in a lot of other areas of my life and its temptations to self-sabotage! I did a lot of things back then that I would not do now.
Like most human beings, I've sure done a lot of really dumb and vain and short-sighted, selfish, self-destructive things, worse than tattoos, but because I learned things about myself and life by screwing up, in retrospect I can't say that I actually regret them because I gained something in the long haul. Maybe your ex-brother-in-law gained something, too.
If people want to get tattoos, that's their business. I pretty much give a pass to military tattoos on men for the most part because there's a whole different dynamic going on there, less to do with vanity and more to do with bonding in a vow that can come down to life or death in combat. But the fact remains that a regular Joe or Jane civilian with tattoos reveals a lot about him or herself, including a one-time or ongoing proclivity for burning bridges on a vain whim.
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