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.
Why yes, yes he did. I remember reading that before he left for the execution chamber, he asked to have his left over last meal saved so that he could eat it later when he got back.
Hey NY doofus.
How about we just put these poor misunderstood souls on a bus to your lovely city. Then you all can be blessed by their presence.
Meanwhile, mind your own business.
Here’s the deal... either these people are so incapable that they should be institutionalized for societies safety or they are perfectly capable of being free in society and thus responsible for their actions.
You can’t have it both ways.
Liberals want to argue that these retards can’t be held responsible... but we still must let them run free!
BS! either lock them up, or hold them responsible.
>>I find that nearly impossible to believe. People with an IQ that low don’t utter sentences like the one he said to the woman he injured. Those are the words of someone with considerably higher mental capacity.<<
From what I have seen of IQ tests, they test knowledge as much as anything. Someone unschooled would come out as having a low IQ (as well as would someone sandbagging at the advice of counsel)
The writer of this drivel has his head stuck so far up his ass it’s never coming out.
Obama voter, no question.
He was buggering a bug? Well, he should be able to get a license in New York.
My husband feels the same way you do. But, my argument is that the push for legalizing gay marriage has nothing to do with rights or marriage. It is an attempt to legitimize homosexuality. If gay unions are sanctioned by the government, there is the basis to prevent discrimination against homosexuality when it comes to things such as....your public school receives federal funds...so homosexuality must have equal representation in sex ed and health programs. It’s an attempt to lessen people’s aversion to it thru mainstreaming, pure and simple. That is why I vehemently oppose it.
I wonder if Tony Metcalf has read Rudyard Kipling.
Ugh.. who wrote this? As a normal, peace lovin’ Houstonian, this article makes me want to BARF!
A. Legalizing immorality does not make a state “civilized”, it makes it DECADENT!
B. Son, I dont care where youre from, but that lowlife deserved to FRY!
God bless Texas!
Now lemme just mosey along over to the head, and puke my guts out because I read that dogpile pretending to be an op-ed.
If I am not mistaken, Mrs. Berliner-Mauer was also married to the Eiffel Tower for a while, but it didn’t stand up.
I’m not making this up.
If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on “NO”.
I think you’d take home some money.
He claimed he shot the first victim in self-defense, then the others because he panicked. Pretty sure those below the age of criminal responsibility have no concept of "self-defense." Not to mention, guns are loud, so after firing the first shot, his panicked thought isn't "drop the gun," but "keep shooting"? Right...that sounds like a five year old reasoning./s Also, how is someone who doesn't have the skills to dress himself managing to be involved in drugs?
I think at one time Nancy Pelosi was trying to “date” the same wall.
““I’ll go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, I’ll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, I’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, I’ll parachute in.”
I’m not making this up.
That suits me just fine. I'm damned tired of liberals and their "feelings." Liberal states would implode without conservative states. Conservative states would excel faster and farther without liberal states.
We can only hope that NY will someday become as compassionate and morally good as Texas.
:-)
Good one,C.W.
The mentally retarded people I met in the workplace had a strong sense of right versus wrong. Their handicap did not eliminate the ability to do and to be good to others.
Agreed, this one knew exactly what he was doing especially when he “apologized” to his paralyzed victim.
“Don’t mess with Texas!”
Only someone with a reverence for, and unwavering faith in, "The State" could even conceive of a statement like that.
But he could murder people. Amazing!
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