America Understands Justice
In last night’s GOP debate in California, a horrifying event. The audience loudly applauded Texas Governor Rick Perry when it was stated that during his tenure as Governor of Texas 234 prisoners met their death in that state’s lethal injection chamber. The record for state killing. You need to see and hear this:
The Telegraph summarized the exchanges that followed the applause:
That’s not much of an explanation. Even if state killing were just, which is it is not, that would not be a reason to applaud. No. Something else was at work. And that is that this audience was already inflamed by the overheated rhetoric of extremist candidates and was doing its very best to goad them on. The audience had become a surly, defiant mob. It was essentially saying, “We’re enraged, so enraged that our anger cannot be staunched, and we will applaud the shedding blood to show how very angry we are.” How barbaric.
If only we hadn’t seen this before. Bill Clinton went to Arkansas during his campaign to preside of the execution of retarded Ricky Ray Rector in 1992. Not to be outdone, George Bush had his Karla Faye Tucker. And now this. More applause for death. More incitement to rage. More provocation to kill. What a pathetic, barbarous display.
The Telegraph summarized the exchanges that followed the applause:
Brian Williams, who was hosting the debate between candidates for next year's Republican nomination, asked Mr Perry whether he felt guilty about possibly sending an innocent person to their death.
The Texas governor said: "No, sir. I've never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which, when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing."
He also added: "In the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed."
Mr Williams followed-up with a question about the enthusiastic reaction from the audience over Mr Perry's execution record and whether he was surprised by the rapturous applause.
Mr Perry said: "I think Americans understand justice."
That’s not much of an explanation. Even if state killing were just, which is it is not, that would not be a reason to applaud. No. Something else was at work. And that is that this audience was already inflamed by the overheated rhetoric of extremist candidates and was doing its very best to goad them on. The audience had become a surly, defiant mob. It was essentially saying, “We’re enraged, so enraged that our anger cannot be staunched, and we will applaud the shedding blood to show how very angry we are.” How barbaric.
If only we hadn’t seen this before. Bill Clinton went to Arkansas during his campaign to preside of the execution of retarded Ricky Ray Rector in 1992. Not to be outdone, George Bush had his Karla Faye Tucker. And now this. More applause for death. More incitement to rage. More provocation to kill. What a pathetic, barbarous display.
Etiquetas: death penalty, Rick Perry
posted by david seth michaels at 9:15 a.m.
1 Comments:
I couldn't even begin to address this.
I have no idea how humans can be so barbaric. Perhaps they are doing so poorly themselves they want to hurt someone or something, or have someone to scapegoat. I'm no psychologist.
I mean, I occasionally say "Kill em all and let god sort em out," in sarcastic frustration... but this wasn't a joke. This is "Wooohooo we kill lots of people!"
The mind boggles.
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