Mitigating Circumstances

Despite its national leadership in the business of executing coloured people of the fiscally-disadvantaged persuasion, the Christian state of Texas has shown that its rough justice has a compassionate side as well. A wealthy white teenager who killed four people and seriously injured two more in a drunk-driving accident has been put on probation and ordered to attend a rehabilitation facility. A psychologist testified that he was suffering from "affluenza", and that his upbringing prevented him from grasping the consequences of his actions. As in the United Kingdom, moral culpability is the preserve of the lower orders, whose worm's-eye view of the world is a nearly infallible socialising influence; doubtless it was pity for his handicap that kept the culprit from being identified as a terrorist and/or drug dealer and thus prevented Texas' Finest from shooting him dead at the site of the accident. It's a jolly good thing there is no such condition as non-affluenza, lackaemia or povertigo, otherwise the Christian state of Texas might never execute anyone at all.