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DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS
The State of Texas kills again this week
[The needle and the damage to come]
and I am shocked to find myself
condemned to a heated game of volleyball
where no one scores points.
the game never ends.
and while I am playing,
people are dying.
I am a member of the Visiting Team,
sentenced to a never-ending road trip
that finds our
convictions under attack and
our backs up against prison walls
in every town we visit.
At our disposal,
an arsenal of arguments honed into killer serves,
defended by a wall of statistics
lined with razor sharp tales of
tragedy and loss.
The odds in Vegas may be overwhelmingly against us,
but we play on.
Game after game,
loss and loss.
criminally persistent in the life and death struggle
we take to the courts on a daily basis,
armed with the knowledge that the points are not our point.
A championship banner is not the Holy Grail we chase.
We want to open eyes and warm hearts
and inject into our opponents a heart gripping solution
which clearly illustrates
that murder
by any other name
is still murder.
The needle and the damage it does.
The state of Texas kills again this week, and
if I were to call a Vegas bookie,
inquire about the odds
that I-
A white collar,
white skinned professional
with access to quality legal representation
(which, for me, means a White Jury)-
could avoid the Death Penalty
once convicted of First Degree Murder,
I would discover some pretty good odds,
urging all bettors to throw their money down
and make a fortune off this Prodigal Son of the Legal System
as he scrambles eggs into omelettes with the Silver Spoons his government
gave him.
I read the statistics and see a system
I was born to beat.
The State of Texas kills again this week and
legal tricks are turned
with an "it deters future crime" slight of hand.
But The State of Texas kills,
and the last time I checked,
so does its citizens.
The State of California kills
yet on January 2nd, 1988,
my next door neighbors were life sentenced to a
state of mourning
after a citizen of California -
apparently undeterred by the high voltage warnings of the previous year-
mugged their son.
Son chose to struggle,
mugger chose to shoot,
and seconds later two had no choice but to die
while the third strolled away with wallet, purse, and maybe a guilty
conscience.
If they had ever caught the murderer-
convicted and killed him-
[The needle and the damage done]
I am willing to bet
that scars would still run deep
and that son and girlfriend
would still be asleep
6 feet underground
unable to hear the triumphant sound of capital punishments so-called
victory.
The State of Texas kills again this week.
[The needle and the damage to come]
and on a sign
on the highway
outside the prison
it reads
"Don't Mess with Texas",
four words that will never mean the same again.
- Jason "Shaggy" Gossard