As some of you may know, last night was the first chance for the current group of GOP candidates to place their views in front of a national audience. According to Google's aggregated news feed, there are 3,739 stories on the events of last night. To my surprise, the story that doesn't seem to be getting much coverage from the major news sources is this one:
While moderator Brian Williams is referencing the amount of people legally murdered in the state of Texas, the crowd apparently finds the record-setting number of 234 worthy of a round of applause, followed by more applause after Mr. Perry's worn platitude about "Ultimate Justice." Now, I would expect the Governor of a state that executes mentally retarded individuals to be proud of that figure, but apparently I have underestimated the bloodthirsty attitude that permeates the culture of the right.
In the interest of fairness, let's say that the crowd believed that there was some sort of drastic drop in the violent crime rate of "the great state of Texas" to justify those executions. The death penalty is a deterrent against those crimes, as the pro-death camp has pointed out quite a few times, so of course that's what the applause was for. The only problem with that theory is the fact that the number of murders in Texas has risen since Rick Perry was sworn in as Governor in 2000.
Even if we are to believe that is the case, it still makes me wonder who in their right mind cheers for the death of 234 people? I understand that these are criminals who, in most cases, are guilty of what they've been accused of. However, I also understand that when you convict someone of a crime it is almost impossible to be one hundred percent sure that you have the right individual. Knowing there is a chance that some of these inmates could have been innocent of the crimes they were executed for should make anyone pause for reflection, not rush to applaud as if something wondrous has happened.
In my opinion, these individuals were not clapping for some idea that they have about the death penalty affecting crime rates. They are simply clapping for the death of human beings. They were clapping because, within the context of what they believe, murder is acceptable as long as it isn't an unregulated murder. I don't claim to understand this, if murder is illegal for the people, it should be illegal for the government as well.
Simply put, events like these always remind me that the world that I want to live in, a world of sense and logic where people care about each other, is not the world that a large portion of this country wants. The want a return to the so called "traditional values" of sexism, racism, and "old time religion." They desire a theocracy based on a drastic misinterpretation of the christian religion. This coming election they will be doing their best to make this nightmare a reality for all of us. They hope to run roughshod over the freedoms and rights that have taken us centuries to obtain. The bottom line is that this is a war for the future of America. A war against a belief system of death and oppression, of money over people, of religion over science. At its basest level it is a war against you.
So stand up and fight back.
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