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.
Milton Mathis executed for Houston double slaying -- HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Condemned Texas inmate Milton Mathis has been put to death for a double slaying more than 12 years ago in Houston.
The execution is the sixth this year in Huntsville. It was carried out Tuesday evening after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments the 32-year-old Mathis was mentally impaired and ineligible for the death penalty....."
I do have to admit I sometimes wonder how NY and TX can be of the same country too....
My solution would be for TX to secede. We’ll be fine and NY can drill their own oil and natural gas. Have fun with all that funny money you guys love to print NY.
Oh, and you can have all of our murdering simpletons too NY, since you love them so.
Ummm, no it's not.
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
Monsters? Where's Tony's compassion for the VICTIM of the murder?
Criminals know that we have the death penalty in Texas. And we USE it.
That’s just one more person who won’t be killing an innocent person in the future.
God bless Texas!!
Cry me a river — mentally challenged is no reason to get away with murder. Texas is the “civilized” state.
Seems to me that Tony Metcalfe needs a penile transplant.
So this so called mentally handicapped person couldn’t dress himself but knew how to use a gun? I find that hard to believe!
That would have been the civilized thing to do.
Tony worries about Texas while ignoring the “civility” of his homosexual pals running around in promisicuous clubs and bathhouses or “tiring of condom fatigue” or bisexuals transmitting HIV to their wives or gfs.
But their “sexual orientation” is not important, why, they LOVE each other. Next Tony will be advocating multiple partnermarriages, man-child relationships, mad-dog relationships . .after all they LOVE each other.
Sorry to say, even the mentally challenged have to adhere to the law!
So if you kill in cold blood - no matter what your mental capacity is, you are a killer.
If you’re drunk and you kill, you’re a killer
If you’re high and you kill, you’re a killer
If you’re insane and kill, you’re a killer
If you were abused and you kill, you’re a killer.
I’m not having an issue with this execution.
Didn’t Clinton rush back to Arkansas once to execute a mentally disabled man?
Rickey Ray Rector
No one is stopping anyone from "luvin" anyone.
I always liked how Ron White put it:
“Everywhere else, they’re closing down their execution chambers. In Texas, we’re installing an express line.”
and
“You kill somebody in Texas, we’ll kill you right back.”
Heck, I heard we were putting in an express lane. ;)
/johnny
Here’s why, dimbulb Tony Metcalf - state’s and government’s don’t have consciences and cannot be compassionate.
Only individuals do and can.
A reality that once admitted destroys the delusions of the left.
This perfectly exemplifies the degree of the KulturKampf being waged in America between the far left social radicals and traditional American values.
There are good arguments against the death penalty. This isn’t one of them. And recognizing a biological abberration as normal is hardly practicing moral values.
>>Seems to me that Tony Metcalfe needs a penile transplant.<<
You mean penile IMPLANT...
One more very good reason to support Perry.
Now, why would someone want to get a high IQ score if 1st prize is death?
The writer could have at least tried to spell Massachusetts correctly.
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