Oddjob0226 said:
An educated legal opinion stated in the Dallas Morning News in 2003 after the woman who smashed her children's heads with rocks for God stated that in TX the insanity defense is used statewide in about 1% of cases, and is successful less than half the time. That means the "cop out excuse" is the cop out. Crazy people aren't getting away with anything. I mean, kid snuffers for Krishna aren't really get a free walk, and then going out to do it again in ever-increasing numbers. The state does more preventative maintainace on material things such as buses than on mentally defective people. We don't get the humane privilege (as the Salvation Army views good works) to use our tax money saving the mentally damaged, we just get the pragmatic burden of Johnny-come-lately stepping in and putting them away when said damage overtook them and someone else's life ended.
Frankly, I'm not sure what's so special about a baby more so than say... any of us here, people already doing stuff here and now, making our way in the world, trying to be good folks and stay out of trouble. That's always rubbed me the wrong way. Told to stay out of the adult's way as a kid.... now as an adult I'm supposed to bow down to the crib. Somewhere I missed my own parade!
I know firsthand how the mentally ill are dealt with in this country. If they don't have someone who will advocate on their behalf, they will fall through the cracks until they do something terribly wrong. Then, we'll jail them, and depending on the severity of the offense, kill them. We don't worry about diagnosis or treatment until they do something to get them put into the system.
Many of you already know my son is autistic with some mental health issues. He is now a very happy, well-adjusted 19 year old. From the ages 13-17, he wasn't so nice. Adolescence wasn't very kind to him. I couldn't get him help until he got himself in trouble with the law and ended up in juvenille court. Even then, because of the mental disabilities, the court just wanted to send him back home with me. If the court system didn't have resources to help him, what in the hell did they think I was going to do? It took four years and a lot of self-destructive behavior to convice everyone that my son was sick, not the result of poor parenting. Now, if you want to talk about cop-outs, I can write a book on how agencies use that excuse to blow off stressed-out, burned-out parents who had good children who turned bad in their teens. I had to tell them that if they didn't do something, I was going to move while he was at school, then they'd be forced to do something for an abandoned child, wouldn't they? And I wasn't kidding because my family couldn't take any more. I sent my daughter to live with her father because she was beginning to resent her brother and said she hated him. I know she didn't mean it, but she was hurting. I couldn't work for two years because I would get phone calls from the school, or he ran away, or was caught stealing (obsessive-compulsive behavior; another form of mental illness). Society does nothing until they get offended, then they just want to lock them all up and throw away the key.
Oddjob, as far as your "crib" comment was concerned, maybe I can address it. Babies are innocent little people who haven't done anything to deserve abuse. They didn't offend the perpetrator, they haven't lived on the earth long enough to do anything to deserve nothing but unconditional love. Crimes against babies and children are always going to be considered especially heinous in this society. I hope this explanation helps. There are some people who needed to come on this earth sterilized-that way this kind of crap couldn't happen!
I have been in several churches throughout my lifetime, and never once had anyone say we should murder our children as sacrifices to God. Even in the bible with Abraham and Isaac, God provided a ram in the bush for the sacrifice, not a child. People read a couple of scriptures in the bible and build an entire religion around it. This is right up there with the religion who plays with snakes and poisions because the bible states that as Christians, these things won't harm you. That doesn't mean you go around playing with snakes and drinking poisions. It means, that if it does happen (and I do mean "if"), God can protect you from their harm. This has nothing to do with religion and has everything to do with stupidity! God gave us common sense for a reason, some people should try using it!
Sorry for the long post, I'll try to shorten the next one.
