assault with a deadly weapon

willie campbell is h.i.v positive. during an arrest for public intoxication, he spit at the police officer and stated that he had aids. he was a repeat offender and under texas law that can get you 25 years in prison. another ten years was added onto his sentence because the dallas jury ruled that he had assaulted the officer with a deadly weapon, meaning his saliva. let's all take a minute to process that level of stupidity...if you go to the centers for disease control and read up on the h.i.v virus, it clearly states that no one has ever transmitted the virus through their saliva, sweat, or tears. hmm. i must be overly optimistic in hoping that after the near witch hunt like hysteria that greeted those infected in the early days of the disease, we had progressed beyond ignorance and fear into the realm of fact and science. apparently i am wrong. it is a sad day when there are still people that believe that h.i.v is some sort of andromeda strain, capable of leaping over tall buildings in a single bound and living outside the host for years on end. perhaps it's even acidic like the saliva from the creatures in the alien movies. leave it to texas to once again lead the charge of the imbecile brigade. willie campbell did something disgusting when he spit at another human being but he did not assault that person with a deadly weapon and i am inclined to believe that he might not have received the potentially harsh 25 year sentence for habitual offenses had it not been for the h.i.v spitting incident. this sets a dangerous precedence for all those infected with the disease and all diseases for that matter. when we allow ourselves to degenerate into a society controlled by fear then you can expect to see violence erupt that targets the weak, diseased, and those just plain different. i was reading what some wrote about this case and they do make my point nicely by saying that campbell should be executed, even going so far as to be set on fire. dear god! All these years of evolution and we have not progressed at all. spoke is going to go get a beer.