Once again, I'm glad I got the hell outta Texas.

[pravnik]

Sure, sure, Texas is a fucked up little backwards embarassment, but what criticism here has been leveled against Texas that couldn’t be leveled at the U.S. as a whole? Founded on slavery? Shit, the United States was built on slavery! Hundreds of years of it! If a U.S. citizen were to sneer at a dinky foreign country for putting “under God” in its pledge, say the theocracy of Texastan, isn’t that argument undercut just a little by the fact that the United States has had “under God” in its own pledge for over 50 years? Saying “sure, but it’s controversial here, and a lot of us don’t think it’s a good idea” doesn’t change the fact that the current Congress, which purports to speak for at least a majority, has not yet seen fit to take it out, nor do they appear to have any intention of doing so anytime soon. Like they say in the Bible, mote in my eye, log in yours.

For the record, I’m an anti-death penalty Texan. I’ve argued the point here repeatedly, mostly with pro-DP non-Texans, oddly enough. The Kenneth Foster case is shocking, admittedly. You know what else is shocking? Foster was convicted under the law as stated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137 (1987), whih created an exception to the unconstitutionality of imposing the death sentence on an accomplice when (1) his participation in the crime was major, and (2) he displayed a “reckless indifference to human life.” Texas crafted his prosecution so that it would follow the law as set down by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said of his conviction “**y transporting a pair of pot smoking armed robbers to and from one robbery after another, Foster clearly displayed the “reckless disregard for human life” the Supreme Court had in mind when it employed the term in Tison.” That’s the Supreme Court of the United States…if you live in the U.S., that’s your Supreme Court. Your Supreme Court also denied cert to the Kenneth Foster case. Three times, actually. Why are you giving yourself a pass for your complicity by dint of being a U.S. citizen?

If you’re like me, it’s because you don’t think you have to answer for every action taken by the U.S. government, or by every wingnut living here. When I lived in Europe 99.9% of everyone I met was at least civil if not outright friendly, but once every three months or so I would get cornered by a drunk who wanted to personally harangue me about the evils the United States had perpetuated on the world in general as if I’d served in every presidential cabinet for the last 200+ years. I just never could get through that despite being an American, I really did think things like the Trail of Tears and the Tuskeegee experiments really were a bad idea, but there are some things to like about the United States, like cajun food. No amount of protestation on my part could ever convince my tormentor that I was not lockstep in agreement with every atrocity the U.S. had ever committed, and on top of that I didn’t even have the decency to be sterotypically fat and loud so as to make myself more conspicous. This was during the Clinton administration, mind you, I can’t imagine what it would be like now.

So yeah, the whole “fuck your state!” thing gets a little old, just like it gets old having to repeat “I didn’t vote for the fuckers!” gets old every time you’re cornered about whatever evils the current U.S. adminstration has inflicted on the world. I’m a defense attorney in Texas, and I have to deal with the shit every day. However sick you are of whatever’s going on in Texas, I promise you I’m more so.

[Siam_Sam]

@jjimm

When I was at elementary school - at two different schools - in Texas in the early 70s, I was compelled to say the pledge every morning, despite being of proud Redcoat stock.

Are you confusing this with the Pledge of Allegiance to America? I grew up in Texas, and I never heard of a state pledge. The one we always had to recite in elementary school was the one to America.

[Bridget_Burke]

@Siam Sam

Are you confusing this with the Pledge of Allegiance to America? I grew up in Texas, and I never heard of a state pledge. The one we always had to recite in elementary school was the one to America.

According to the Houston Chronicle:

Texas has had a pledge of allegiance since 1933. In 2003, the Legislature required all schools to pledge allegiance to the U.S. and Texas flags and observe a moment of silence every morning at the beginning of classes.

I attended Texas public schools beginning in the mid-50’s. And we never said the Texas Pledge. Just the US Pledge; & we sang one verse of “My Country 'tis of Thee.”

No “moment of silence” either. Prayers were saved for special events. But they always said The Our Father wrong. And never the Hail Mary–for some reason…

Sounds like The New Regime began in 2003.

[Siam_Sam]

@Bridget Burke

According to the Houston Chronicle:
I attended Texas public schools beginning in the mid-50’s. And we never said the Texas Pledge. Just the US Pledge; & we sang one verse of “My Country 'tis of Thee.”

The Texas Pledge is a new one on me. Like you, just the US Pledge. And I do remember the “My Country Tis of Thee” bit now, too.

[OneCentStamp]

@Bridget Burke

“What a neat mousepad–where did you get it?”

“At the Contemporary Art Museum gift shop.”

“Where’s that?”

(Two miles away from here, you idiot!)

And it’s free (the museum, not the gift shop)!! :smack:

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been in Houston for such a short time (not even 2 years yet) and am still in tourist mode, but I can’t believe how much cool stuff native Houstonians take for granted/are completely ignorant of. The museums would top that list of stuff - I love them, and that’s coming from someone who grew up in the backdoor of the Smithsonian Institution.

[light_strand]

@Bridget Burke

Well, I’ve known too many people working in Houston’s TMC who didn’t know more about the city than the quickest routes back to suburbia.

“What a neat mousepad–where did you get it?”

“At the Contemporary Art Museum gift shop.”

“Where’s that?”

(Two miles away from here, you idiot!)

I’m also glad you’re not in Texas any more.

(For non-Houstonians: Spring is another distant suburb.)

And I’ve known too many Texans who correct people about stupid shit just to show folks how smart they are. You must be brilliant, so as to explain to me how far Plano was from Dallas. According to my nightmarish commute with the worst drivers in the union, it was 20 miles door-to-door, but it took anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours.

And the reason people didn’t hang in Houston is because there ain’t shit to do there. The place empties to a ghost town about 35 nanoseconds after five. Absolutely the worst downtown ever. Hell, Deep Ellum is better, and Deep Ellum sucks.

Ohhhh, Contomparary Art, you must be cultured!

[eleanorigby]

@Mtgman

Research some voter turnout numbers if you want your blue face to shift into the indigo and violet spectrum. The VAST majority of political decisions are made by minorities, and I’m not just talking swinging an election. I’m talking about every single person who exercised their political power during an election added together is still a minority of the population which was eligible to speak out about the issue.
Enjoy,
Steven

Ok. not sure if the blue face is referring to the sad emoticon or my liberal leanings). I agree with you. But as I’ve stated elsewhere in this thread, commonality doesn’t make something ok. Texas is certainly not alone in its fucked-upness–but its fucked-upness does make the news more often and seems to carry more weight (the textbooks for one example-why should IL’s textbooks be influenced by some backwoods fundamentalist Texas belief system?). I support local elections–I vote. If anything, we get the government and the “leaders” we (the nation) deserve from our ignorance and apathy. But that doesn’t mean we can’t point out examples of such and mock or deplore them at will. I say we pick on Rhode Island next–the state with “plantation” still in its official name!

@pravnik

Texas crafted his prosecution so that it would follow the law as set down by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said of his conviction “**y transporting a pair of pot smoking armed robbers to and from one robbery after another, Foster clearly displayed the “reckless disregard for human life” the Supreme Court had in mind when it employed the term in Tison.” That’s the Supreme Court of the United States…if you live in the U.S., that’s your Supreme Court. Your Supreme Court also denied cert to the Kenneth Foster case.

I wasn’t aware that the court decision was based on a Supreme Court decision, but this man was prosecuted under this insane law in Texas. If he was being held on death row in IL, I would be as upset–except for one thing. IL decided to halt all deaths until some future date (or until some legislation can be agreed upon) because it reluctantly came to the conclusion that its system of prosecution was flawed.
I’d be less scathing of Texas if it did the same–and if its leaders (like W as governor) refused to pardon those on death row, but(as President) gave his buddy, Scooter, an easy out… Politics in IL can and is corrupt-most likely it’s the same in Nebraska and Hawaii. But this thread is about Texas.

[pravnik]

@eleanorigby

I wasn’t aware that the court decision was based on a Supreme Court decision, but this man was prosecuted under this insane law in Texas. If he was being held on death row in IL, I would be as upset–except for one thing. IL decided to halt all deaths until some future date (or until some legislation can be agreed upon) because it reluctantly came to the conclusion that its system of prosecution was flawed.
I’d be less scathing of Texas if it did the same–and if its leaders (like W as governor) refused to pardon those on death row, but(as President) gave his buddy, Scooter, an easy out… Politics in IL can and is corrupt-most likely it’s the same in Nebraska and Hawaii. But this thread is about Texas.

That’s just my point, though, that the ridiculous legislation and capital sentencing being complained of isn’t limited to Texas. It didn’t even start here; as you said, it just makes the news more often. The link on the Foster case from the last page said:

Texas is the only state that applies this statute in capital cases, making it the only place in the United States where a person can be factually innocent of murder and still face the death penalty.

That’s just flat-out wrong. First, if it means “factually innocent” to mean “not the triggerman,” every state in the union has a law making a conspirator guilty in murder, e.g. if I hire you to kill my spouse. Secondly, if it means accomplice liability where no intent to kill has been proved, the Supreme Court precedent relied on in the Foster case came from Arizona, and has been applied before and since in many other states.

The Tison case involved two brothers, Ricky and Raymond Tison, who helped two felons escape from prison. When their car got a flat, the escapees flagged down a car with a family in it, and then killed them. The two brothers did not pull the trigger, did not know they were going to murder the family, and expressed surprise and horror when they did. Arizona sentenced them to death, and the Supreme Court upheld it. In it’s decsion, the Court took note of which states had a death penalty statute like the one in Arizona:

Like the Enmund Court, we find the state legislatures’ judgment as to proportionality in these circumstances relevant to this constitutional inquiry.[Footnote 4] The largest number of States still fall into the two intermediate categories discussed in Enmund. Four States authorize the death penalty in felony-murder cases upon a showing of culpable mental state such as recklessness or extreme indifference to human life.[Footnote 5] Two jurisdictions require that the defendant’s participation be substantial[Footnote 6] and the statutes of at least six more, including Arizona, take minor participation in the felony expressly into account in mitigation of the murder.[Footnote 7] These requirements significantly overlap both in this case and in general, for the greater the defendant’s participation in the felony murder, the more likely that he acted with reckless indifference to human life. At a minimum, however, it can be said that all these jurisdictions, as well as six States which Enmund classified along with Florida as permitting capital punishment for felony murder simpliciter,[Footnote 8] and the three States which simply require some additional aggravation before imposing the death penalty upon a felony murderer,[Footnote 9] specifically authorize the death penalty in a felony-murder case where, though the defendant’s mental state fell short of intent to kill, the defendant was a major actor in a felony in which he knew death was highly likely to occur. On the other hand, even after Enmund, only 11 States authorizing capital punishment forbid imposition of the death penalty even though the defendant’s participation in the felony murder is major and the likelihood of killing is so substantial as to raise an inference of extreme recklessness.[Footnote 10] This substantial and recent legislative authorization of the death penalty for the crime of felony murder regardless of the absence of a finding of an intent to kill powerfully suggests that our society does not reject the death penalty as grossly excessive under these circumstances, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S., at 179-181 (opinion of Stewart, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ.); see also Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S., at 594.

It followed with a brief overview of state court impositions of the death penalty absent a specific intent to kill:

Moreover, a number of state courts have interpreted Enmund to permit the imposition of the death penalty in such aggravated felony murders. We do not approve or disapprove the judgments as to proportionality reached on the particular facts of these cases, but we note the apparent consensus that substantial participation in a violent felony under circumstances likely to result in the loss of innocent human life may justify the death penalty even absent an “intent to kill.” See, e. g., Clines v. State, 280 Ark. 77, 84, 656 S. W. 2d 684, 687 (1983) (armed, forced entry, nighttime robbery of private dwelling known to be occupied plus evidence that killing contemplated), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1051 (1984); Deputy v. State, 500 A. 2d 581, 599-600 (Del. 1985) (defendant present at scene; robbed victims; conflicting evidence as to participation in killing), cert. pending, No. 85-6272; Ruffin v. State, 420 So.2d 591, 594 (Fla. 1982) (defendant present, assisted codefendant in kidnaping, raped victim, made no effort to interfere with codefendant’s killing victim and continued on the joint venture); People v. Davis, 95 Ill. 2d 1, 52, 447 N. E. 2d 353, 378 (defendant present at the scene and had participated in other crimes with Holman, the triggerman, during which Holman had killed under similar circumstances), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1001 (1983); Selvage v. State, 680 S. W. 2d 17, 22 (Tex. Cr. App. 1984) (participant in jewelry store robbery during the course of which a security guard was killed; no evidence that defendant himself shot the guard but he did fire a weapon at those who gave chase); see also Allen v. State, 253 Ga. 390, 395, n. 3, 321 S. E. 2d 710, 715, n. 3 (1984) (“The result in [Enmund v. Florida] does not turn on the mere fact that Enmund was convicted of felony murder. It is important to note how attenuated was Enmund’s responsibility for the deaths of the victims in that case”), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1059 (1985).

Against this backdrop, we now consider the proportionality of the death penalty in these midrange felony-murder cases for which the majority of American jurisdictions clearly authorize capital punishment and for which American courts have not been nearly so reluctant to impose death as they are in the case of felony murder simpliciter.

Texas is far, far from the only state that to impose the death penalty in circumstaces like Foster’s. It also bears repeating that its the U.S. Supreme Court that’s setting down these guidelines and upholding these death sentence, with the help of the U.S. Congress, who makes the statutes for habeas corpus relief. One of the reasons that the 5th Circuit didn’t overturn his conviction on his final effort was that stand alone actual innocence claims aren’t coginizable under federal habeas corpus law, particulary the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, or AEDPA. Congress passed the AEDPA 91-8-1 in the Senate, 293-133-7 in the House, and Bill Clinton signed it into law.

Yes, Illinois granted a moratorium on the death penalty, and good on them for it, but it took some pretty shocking events for it to come about. After all his appeals had run out and just days before his execution, new evidence came to light of the innocence of Anthony Porter which set him free and saved his life. This evidence was found by undergrad journalism students at Northwestern university after everyone officially involved with the case had given up. Governor Ryan didn’t suggest a moratorium right away, though. His initial reaction was more along the lines of:

Illinois Governor George Ryan suggested that the exoneration was evidence that the system worked.

[zamboniracer]

I thought Texas was already divided against itself, between Longhorn fans and Aggie fans, with pockets of Red Raider, Houston Cougar, SMU Mustang fans here and there.

[elucidator]

The essential divide is between people who think Aggie jokes are hysterically funny, and Aggies, who don’t get them.

[eleanorigby]

Governor Ryan is serving time for other shenanigans. And he is on record as saying that the whole Northwestern U investigation changed his mind on the death penalty and he refused to reinstate it. Would that Texas would so as well.

I’m not fond of your state–for some good reasons, but mostly because most Texans I’ve come across can’t seem to shut up about how great it is. This is not exclusive to Texans, but Texas is the focus of this thread. Yes, it’s a generalization to say that Texans are braggarts, with cowboy and good ole boy complexes etc, but so too is the stance that Texas is so great or “perfect” a generalization. I’m sure there ARE great things about Texas-why not tell us about some of them? Bragging or dismissing another’s POV doesn’t get anyone very far, but persuasion might.

[Ca3799]

Fellow Texans- please do not tell anyone what is great about our state. Too many people are coming here and junking the place up.

[Clothahump]

@drewbert

You’ve all missed the news about the new chair of the Texas state board of education?

<stereotype on>

Shee-it, boy, if it ain’t the gawddamn electric chair, we don’t wanna hear about it.

<stereotype off>

[El_Kabong]

The essential divide is between people who think Aggie jokes are hysterically funny, and Aggies, who don’t get them.

Which reminds me: Sometime back in the mid-eighties, I’m riding over the crest of the Andes from Quito, Ecuador to a drilling location somewhere in the Oriente. The winding, one-lane dirt road is in the process of being improved, and at one point we come around a hairpin turn to be greeted by a brand-new, beautifully constructed stone arch bridge paralleling the existing road. There’s just one notable omission: no approaches on either side; just this bridge standing out in the open, with empty space at each end. Then I notice someone has painted in fluorescent orange on the side of the bridge: “Built by Aggies”.

True story, swear to God.

[elucidator]

Aggie seven course dinner? Six pack of Pearl and a possum.

[Siam_Sam]

And then there was the Aggie who moved to Oklahoma, raising the average IQ of both states in the process.