A Sign of the Times: NY State executes Pet Squirrel, but spares Killers from the Chair...

 

In New York STATE, A Pet squirrel is executed…

But Murderers are allowed to Walk!

What is the proper function of secular Government?

by Pastor Terry L. Reese, 10/10/24

 

"PEANUT"

“…the magistrate is God's servant for your benefit. But if you do wrong, you may well be alarmed; a magistrate does not wield the power of the sword for nothing, he is God's servant for the infliction of divine vengeance upon evil-doers.”—Rom. 13:4 (Moffatt NT)

 

On Nov. 1, officers of NY State’s Department of Environmental Conservation and police conducted a 5-hour raid at the home of Mark Longo of rural Pine City, seizing Longo’s pet of seven years—Peanut the Squirrel—whom they promptly euthanized after Peanut bit one of the agents. Peanut—who had been rescued by Longo as a baby after his mother was hit by a car and who was unable to survive on his own in the wild—was a popular internet figure on Instagram due to his playful and amusing antics, with half-a-million followers on the popular social media platform. However, because Longo did not have “license” to keep wildlife, the home was raided, with the homeowner being subject to various indignities and acts of personal humiliation. During the ordeal, Longo’s wife, a woman of German descent, was questioned about her immigration status, while Longo himself was denied bathroom privileges without police escort. Also seized & euthanized was a pet raccoon, Fred.

 

It is interesting to note that the same NY State that executed Peanut has not executed an actual murderer since 1963, when Eddie Lee Mays, who robbed and killed a young woman in East Harlem, was sent to “the Chair” at Sing Sing. In fact, execution has been forbidden as “unconstitutional” in NY since 2004.

 

This is the sort of travesty that occurs when a disordered society refuses to acknowledge God’s chief purpose in ordaining the institution of human secular government: namely, to protect mankind from suffering under the sort of lawlessness that prevailed before the Flood (Gen. 4:23-24; 6:13) by establishing LAW & ORDER (Rom. 13:4, 1Pet. 2:13-14)—which includes a universally mandated capital punishment (Gen. 9:5-6)! God demands that civil magistrates enforce this decree because 1) capital punishment is the only just & appropriately proportional punishment, and 2), it serves as an effective deterrent (Deut. 13:11, 21:21). 

AND YET... while today’s “humane” and “enlightened” hyper-regulatory state run by "woke" elites seemingly wants to do everything and impose itself upon even the most detailed minutia of our very existence—it nonetheless refrains from doing what God has explicitly commanded it to do: namely, execute murderers!