Cartoons Always Get It Right…Mostly

Cruel and unusual punishment. The third and final statement comprising Article VIII of the U.S. Constitution Bill of Rights. Neither space nor time permit me to delve into the historical context under which the Article, or the other nine, were written. History is a changing entity. Not that it should be so, but it is. Thanks in most part to misinterpretation of that history due to our public sector Education System.

And to that end I blame the agendas of both Secular Humanism, writing God out of U.S. history as well as the Conservative Evangelical movement, which seeks to put God in, on, and around everything they can get their greedy little hands on [pertaining to U.S. history].

This kind of Pendulum Polarity reminds me of the Singleness-Marriage madness engulfing Christians of my pathetic generation. I’m not sure who to blame, but I believe Evangelicalism, in this matter, is playing the role of both Middle Ages Catholicism and Protestantism at the same time. I really must ask: Is that even possible?

Can’t we all just get along? But I digress.

Samuel Maull, of The Associated Press, wrote an article yesterday citing that a black man from New York City has recently been sentenced to 240 years in prison. A crime which occurred five years ago this June [a violation of Article VII - right to a speedy trial?], Steven Johnson essentially did no more than hold up fifteen people in a bar, wounding three. He was finally tackled by two women [props for Feminism] and then shot by a cop.

Johnson was charged with committing a hate crime by moving from “the Brooklyn housing project where he lived…to go look for ‘happy’ white people to avenge the mistreatment of blacks“. His supposed mental disorders and childhood sexual abuse notwithstanding, which are simply sick, childish, O.J. Simpson-esque excuses used to be held not liable for committing a crime, a sentencing of 240 years more than fits the definition of cruel [and unusual] punishment. A simple, one life-sentence should get the message across.

After all: It is appointed for men to die once.

Two hundred forty years seems more like a sarcastic, Judicial slap in the face.

I think South Park, that blasphemous, but equally hilarious, Comedy Central show, got it right when maligning the idea of hate crimes.