Posted on 06/22/2011 1:07:19 PM PDT by 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.
Actually:
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Note location of the commas. " ... one nation under God, indivisible ..."
The phrase "under God" was added in 1954, by act of Congress, at the behest of (among others) the Knights of Columbus and Rev. Dr. George MacPherson Docherty.
At present, I think it's more a matter of wishful thinking than it is a description of reality.
It really is so simple. Why can't he see it?
If they were KIA in a crack house-and the murderer was there
it sorta suggests they were Victim twice over-at least. First the pusherman— then to the avenging angel of death.By not suffering a murderer to live the murderer has now faced a righteous Judge-and those he murdered. Too bad he didn’t get the evil one who supplied the crack house.
He is a scared little boy who feels he can't conrol his life if he can't control yous and mine as well.
Wishful thinking for certain, especially with this present generation.
New York: A state withOUT brains or balls.
“Under God” certainly does not seem to characterize present reality in any State giving serious consideration to institutionalizing buggery.
If New York wants to O.K. sodomy, what does that have to do with Texas?
“Rick Perry’s brand of medieval populism”
The guy has not even announced his candidacy, and the government lapdogs are already preemptively smearing Perry and Texas. This will be a brutal campaign.
But what is to be done when the destructive policies of the failed states finally make them so politically and socially gangrenous that they threaten the existence of the other states?
So he can kill again!
For Milton Mathis Tuesday is Fryday.
It could be easily argued that any human who kills another human without cause, is mentally incompetant.
The small town of Goliad Texas has an impressive central town square, which houses the government center. One side of the square includes a stately oak tree, “The Hanging Tree.”
Once a defendent lost a capital case in the square’s courthouse, he was taken over to the “hanging tree” for justice within ten minutes of the verdict.
No meals, no appeals. Simple justice!
It just won't be implanted on the front of his body..
Mow that I am moving to TX, that will be prominent on my wall, my car and my work area!
So according to the author an adult with an IQ higher then my young adults cannot dress himself. Hmmm, I call bull crap.
The question is did this man understand that what he did was wrong, if he did truly keep shooting because he panicked after the first shot the yes he did understand that what he was doing/did was wrong.
Well welcome home! Let us know when you get here and we’ll buy you a Dr. Pepper!
Now that’s not nice-——think of us poor conservatives stuck living here.
And I’ll stand you up a Lone Star my FRiend!
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