USA: Republicans Cheer Texas Death Penalty at GOP Debate

To applause, Perry defends Texas death penalty

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is defending the death penalty in Texas and says he's never struggled with whether any of the inmates executed during his time as governor might have been innocent.

“No sir, I’ve never struggled with that at all.” Rick Perry’s response to the question of whether he’s ever had trouble sleeping at night over the 234 people he’s executed and the chance that anyone of them might be innocent.

When Perry defended capital punishment, he drew strong applause from the scores of people in the audience at the Republican debate Wednesday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

As of today, 234 people have been executed in the 10-plus years that Perry has served as governor of Texas. That's the highest number of any American governor.

The audience first applauded when NBC News anchor Brian Williams cited the number of executions in Texas. Perry says he believes that such a response reflects how much Americans support capital punishment for particularly heinous crimes.

Source: Associated Press, September 7, 2011

Gruesome GOP crowd applauds Perry's execution of 284 humans

There wasn't much excitement in last night's GOP debate. Sure, Ron Paul and Rick Perry traded some barbs, but over all it was civil. That is, until moderator Brian Williams brought up Perry's execution record.

What is sickening is that Perry's record setting 284 executions as the governor of Texas actually garnered lively applause from the audience.

Perhaps — at least in my own judgement — some of the loudest applause of the night.

That's right, the crowd became most lively when it was announced that Perry had a hand in killing 284 human beings.

I want to take a moment here to point out that I am currently a registered Republican. But after hearing those applause, I do not want to be associated with that crowd. I never fit in very well, anyway. And I don't fit in with the Democrats, either.

Still, the applause made me want to run as far away from the Republicans as humanly possible.

How can a party that has such blatant and justified mistrust for government intervention; a party that believes (or claims to believe) that the government fails at most things; a party that believes the government isn't even good at helping the poor; actually believe that this same government is perfect enough, is infallible enough, to take the life of another human being? Isn't that a blatant contradiction?

I know, they are convicted criminals. Perry was quick to point that out. But, he is also quick to point out that the government is wrong when it comes to Keynesian economics or intervention in the health care market. If the government which, after all, is made up of imperfect individuals, could be wrong about those things, couldn't it be wrong about others? Isn't it possible that the government got some of those convictions wrong as well? The government, we all know, is not perfect.

As a taxpayer, I do not support the death penalty, especially when used as excessively as Perry did, because I do not want the blood of innocent life on my hands. I would rather that those guilty men rot in jail, or even go free, than risk the chance of murdering — because that is what it would be — one innocent man.

After all, DNA evidence has exonerated 17 people in the United States after they were already sitting on death row, including one innocent man who waited 21 years for the state's sickle to come down on him. Luckily, he wasn't in Perry's state, or he would have been killed before the DNA evidence could exonerate him.

Luckily, those 17 people were on death row during a time when the DNA technology was developed. If they were accused a couple of decades sooner, they would have likely been murdered.

The government is not perfect. It is not anywhere near perfect. At best, it is a necessary evil. At worst, it is counterproductive, abusive, and stagnating — and at it's absolute worst it is murderous.

Source: Op-Ed; Micahel Billy, Digiatal Journal, September 8, 2011

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