I'll Allow as How You're from Texas

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Southwest/04/01/children.slain.ap/index.html

A dilemma to consider during this fall's elections (emphasis added):

"TYLER, Texas (AP) -- A housewife said the first sign that God wanted her to kill her three boys came Mother's Day weekend when she saw her 14-month-old playing with a toy spear. Deanna Laney said she resisted at first, but the signs kept coming. The baby came to her with a rock, and later in the day squeezed a frog, and she believed God was suggesting that she should either stab, stone or strangle her children. A sobbing Laney recounted in a videotape played at her capital murder trial Wednesday how she smashed her sons' skulls with rocks to prove her faith to God."

"The defense is trying to convince jurors that the signs from God were actually psychotic delusions caused by a severe mental illness that made Laney incapable of knowing right from wrong at the time of the killings, the standard in Texas for insanity."

"Dietz said Laney wasn't thinking about state law when she killed the boys, but acknowledged that she probably knew her act was illegal at the time."

Now, since the sitting President has made it clear that proving "our" faith in God is what we're up to in America, and by extension in the killing of pretty much anyone who we imagine doesn't like "our" God, it seems mighty problematic to be punishing our citizens for doing just that. Furthermore, this story suggests why our government was so craven about the latest Gulf War (detentions at Guantanamo, etc.), since it's absolutely certain that our President "knew [his] act was illegal at the time": it's how you prove you're not insane.