Texas: A state without conscience

Metro NY ^ | June, 22, 2011 | Tony Metcalf, Editor

[Cincinatus' Wife]

So, the United States is One Nation, as the Pledge of Allegiance has it?

I sometimes wonder how that can possibly be so.

Yesterday, lawmakers here in New York were on the verge of making gay marriage legal.

Although the issue is controversial, it's a sign that the state is civilized and considerate, understanding that people should be allowed to love each other whatever their sexual orientation.

At the same time the state of Texas executed a mentally handicapped man by lethal injection.

How can one country produce such wildly differing moral landscapes?

How can one state prepare to take a massive step into the 21st century, while not 1,000 miles away another part of the same country travels back in time to the dark ages?

To be fair, the executed man, Milton Mathis, is not exactly the sort you'd want your daughter bringing home. He shot dead two people in a Houston crack house, and left a 15-year-old girl paralyzed.

But he had an IQ of 62. Psychologists routinely regard any adult with an IQ under 70 as being mentally handicapped. Mathis could not perform some of the most basic functions, such as dressing himself.

It was like executing a five year old child, and his death is an indelible stain on the state of Texas.

To those who say Mathis was smart enough to pull the trigger, there is a reason that there is an age of criminal responsibility. Elsewhere, children and those are children in an adult's body, are deemed to be unaware of the consequences of their actions and therefore not liable to the criminal law.

Mathis should have been detained for a very long time in a secure mental hospital, and he should have received treatment or therapy for his disability before, if and when it was deemed fit and proper, he was released into the community.

That would have been the civilized thing to do.

Instead, Governor Rick Perry, who vetoed state legislation ten years ago that would have outlawed executing the mentally disabled, gave the go ahead for the monsters to ram home the plunger on Tuesday night.

Perry, incidentally, is many people's tip as GOP candidate for the presidency in 2012.

If you live in one a state such as New York or Massachussetts, where they outlaw the death penalty, or in New Jersey where it has not been used since 1976, or even in Pennsylvania, which has resorted to it only three times since 1976, and if you are tempted to back Perry for President, remember Milton Mathis.

And just consider what electing Rick Perry's brand of medieval populism would say about the United States.

[July4]

I have no special insight into the problem of determining the IQ of a criminal, but I suspect that most of these folks have the equivalent of a PhD in gaming the system. I'm suspicious, too, that many an attorney, as well as prisoner advocates, coach the accused on how to simulate mental illness or a low IQ.

Then, there are those who are genuinely unable to understand what they have done or the rules of our society. I don't know what to do about them, but we can't continue letting hurt themselves and others.

[presidio9]

I agree with both of you. My conclusion is also based on Catholicism, which did not recognize any marriage that did not take place in a Catholic Church. I go a bit farther than that. I believe that a man and a woman are married when they make a promise to each other and to God in front of their own religious community (as a side note, this is why I also don't believe in divorce in most circumstances: You break a promise to God at the peril of your own eternal soul. Your wife cheated on you? What did God have to have to do with it?).

That being said, I agree with the idea that the real issue here is gays seeking further acceptance in the community. After 50+ years of looking science has yet to identify the so-called "gay gene." I am willing to hypothesize that none exists. Therefore, a good percentage of homosexuals were not, in fact, "born that way." Since homosexuals can not reproduce, they are forced to recruit. History has shown that the more permissive societies had a larger percentage of homosexuals. They also tended to be on the verge of self-destruction, but I won't make that argument here.

[Political Junkie Too]

How can one country produce such wildly differing moral landscapes?

Wildly different?

Didn't New York "produce" David Berkowitz? How's he doing these days?

-PJ

[17th Miss Regt]

Putting someone to death does not deter other criminals. Nor does it stop the criminal that is put to death from committing other crimes when they get out.

(/Liberal)

[Maverick68]

New York can su....well, let’s just say the average Texan is brilliant, courageous and TRULY compassionate compared to the average New Yorker.....
Let’s say you’re being mugged: Do you think you have a better chance of being helped by a bystander in Texas or New York.........

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Not to mention, guns are loud, so after firing the first shot, his panicked thought isn't "drop the gun," but "keep shooting"?

Not only that but he rounded the rest up. See Post #68.

[cynwoody]

Monsters? Where's Tony's compassion for the VICTIM of the murder?

Tony cares for neither the victim nor the perp.

He's just worried about the governor of a state with a record that puts the New York and most of the remaining 48 to shame. He worries that, come 2012, the country will follow Texas into those prosperous dark ages.

[shield]

Anyone evil enough to kill two people would have to be insane. A word mistranslated in the scripture is enosh=two legged beast/animal.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

.....Do you think you have a better chance of being helped by a bystander in Texas or New York.

VERY well put.

Texas.

Though I do know there are some friendly people in upstate New York too.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

.....He worries that, come 2012, the country will follow Texas into those prosperous dark ages.

Yes.

[Arrowhead1952]

Mathis should have been detained for a very long time . . . . if and when it was deemed fit and proper, he was released into the community.

Hey Tony, how about you take criminals like Mathis into your home after they are "rehabilitated" as you see to have so much compassion? I bet you'd never entertain that thought.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

We can only hope that NY will someday become as compassionate and morally good as Texas.

Texas has about the nicest people in the country. They've been raised right, know about right and wrong and about being punished for their transgressions. Texans also help their neighbors. Thousands of people from New Orleans will attest to that.

[mjp]

True justice is making a moral judgment and then acting in accordance with that judgment and giving that person what he deserves. There is no time component to that definition. It applies to all times and places. The author seems to be a typical libtard that doesn't understand the definition of justice.

Also he doesn't seem to understand the definition of marriage. It is a particular kind of relationship between a man and a woman. There is no component that prohibits two men from loving each other. They just can't get married.

[txroadkill]

How can one state prepare to take a massive step into the 21st century, while not 1,000 miles away another part of the same country travels back in time to the dark ages?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

God Blessed Texas!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

LOL

[Clay+Iron_Times]

So, the United States is One Nation, as the Pledge of Allegiance has it?

Uh, No...

One Nation, UNDER GOD

SO, IF we are under GOD, then we are also under HIS WORD

And His Word declares:

ROMANS 1

24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28. And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

[dynachrome]

“one nation under God”

Except at NBC

[StonyBurk]

I rather like your solution— IF Texas were to follow your advice I would hope they would allow old men born in Colorado to join them. Problem with New York is their argument fails
people in every State can love whoever they want. But as with most things the Government gets its hands on -Marriage “ has suffered under Govt. oversight. Shudder to think of the bankruptcy that would occur should Obummer-Soetoro and the New York politicians get to decide how “marriage must now be defined.Not mere financial bankruptcy from those who choose their lifestyle/Orientation —but Moral bankruptcy as well.

[YHAOS]

It's real simple, Metcalf:

Think marriage should be whatever you want it to be?
Stay in NY.

Think marriage is between one man and one woman?
Move to Texas.

Is this a great country, or what?

[Responsibility2nd]

Didn’t he also say that other states have an Electric Chair.

In Texas we have Electric Bleachers!