Murdering the mentally disabled
Last week, when the state of Texas executed a retarded man, it did so under a state standard of mental retardation inspired by the fictional character Lennie Small in John Steinbeck's novel "Of Mice and Men." Steinbeck's son Thomas issued a statement that included this passage, "My father was a highly gifted writer... His work was certainly not meant to be scientific, and the character of Lennie was never intended to be used to diagnose a medical condition like intellectual disability. I find the whole premise to be insulting, outrageous, ridiculous, and profoundly tragic."Marvin Wilson was the man executed. He was a 54-year-old black man who, according to the Atlantic magazine, "could not handle money or navigate a phone book, a man who sucked his thumb and could not always tell the difference between left and right." He had an IQ of 61, which placed him below the one percentile of measured human intelligence. The Supreme Court outlawed executions of the mentally retarded in 2002, but strangely, left open the flexibility of individual states to establish this standard. One would doubt the Lone Star State's ability to formulate such a judgement if one has seen the science textbooks in their public schools.
Marvin Wilson was Governor Rick Perry's 245th legal kill.
posted by CM @ 6:46 PM
1 Comments:
When the government controls all we're screwed and there's no way to know if things would be better or worse if things such as this were handled at the state level. It's terrifying and sad. I just hope my community thinks like I do. If not, I need to find boxes.
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