In what may be one of the more surreal moments in recent history, an audience of conservatives watching the Republican debate last night in California, cheered Governor Rick Perry's record of executing human beings in Texas.
I'm wondering what Republicans would think if Democrats cheered the number of abortions performed in a candidate's home state?
Remember, these are also the people who support torture at the same time they clutch a Bible and proclaim their love of Jesus.
There are some disturbed and genuinely ill individuals that inhabit the right side of the political spectrum.
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12 comments:
Greenwald makes the valid point it extends to more than one side of the spectrum at times.
Naturally, I would not have applauded. Some in the audience did. None of the candidates on the dais did.
This however is a noteworthy comment that brings some pause to think on this serious subject no matter what side you're on:
"Let's say a conservative journalist was questioning a panel of liberal Democrats running for President of United States, and the conservative journalist said
all of you at one time or another have voted for abortion rights legislation.
Do you struggle to sleep at night knowing that abortion, which you voted for, ends a process that otherwise would result in a human being, a baby ?
Now, that question is clearly loaded, and any conservative journalist that would ask such a question would rightly get whacked by anybody whose's fair minded.
Well, Brian Williams did ask that question about a different controversial subject.
Personally, I don't care if he's against the death penalty in his private life, but not as a moderator of a Presidential Debate."
-Bernie Goldberg, Sep 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei__EbcnE3o
Carlos: excellent, although I disagree with Goldberg that the abortion question shouldn't be brought up. Absolutely it should, just as Williams' question about the death penalty is fair game. On this issue it clearly exposes the false equivalency that is all too common. The willful termination of an innocent human fetus is NOT the same as the execution of a convicted criminal. That's not to say that we should just execute anyone and everyone, and I believe we must be very cautious and make every possible assurance that any decision to send someone to the death penalty be done only after the most careful consideration of all the evidence and the impacts of such an action. Those that are stridently against the death penalty but are weak-kneed or totally against abortion regulation measures and laws have no authenticity to question anyone on their pro-life stance. Absolutely NONE.
"The willful termination of an innocent human fetus is NOT the same as the execution of a convicted criminal."
*sigh*
How do I manage to create these monsters?
Shame on you, Robert. Only I speak for myself. You are a mere interpreter...and a bad one at that.
Thou shallt not kill.*
*except when they really, really deserve it.
This is a really good time to bring up the excellent and exhaustively well-researched David Grann article about Camron Todd Willingham, the man whose execution should keep Rick Perry up at night:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann
Anybody who reads how mismanaged the arson investigation was - even people as willfully blind as Robert and Carlos up there - and does not think that being in Perry's position and KNOWING ALL THIS should have moved him to at least commute the sentence and give Willingham the chance to prove his innocence with new evidence, does not have a the moral authority to pass judgment on other's decisions about abortion.
One of the reasons we give governors and presidents the power to grant clemency precisely because our justice system is imperfect and can be manipulated. It should give him/her pause. It is designed that way for that reason. Anybody who brags that sending people under his custody to death does not worry him is derelict of duty and unfit to be a leader of free men.
Alex: Well said, my son.
Robert, 2 Hail Marys, 5 Our Fathers and all is forgiven.
whatta you say?
One of the reasons we give governors and presidents the power to grant clemency precisely because our justice system is imperfect and can be manipulated.
Couldn't agree more and it goes to the heart of why, as I wrote above, we need to be extremely cautious when handing death penalties.
Robert, 2 Hail Marys, 5 Our Fathers and all is forgiven.
whatta you say?
Imposter! Blasphemy!
"Couldn't agree more and it goes to the heart of why, as I wrote above, we need to be extremely cautious when handing death penalties. "
Then you would agree as well that using one's willingness to carry out death sentences and bragging to be "100% certain" as George W. Bush said, or "not losing any sleep over it" as Perry put it, are signs of at least contempt for the caution that should accompany the privilege of clemency?
Nobody can be 100% sure of 100% of the sentences (I'm attaching a link to the Innocence Project Texas page, which lists 44 exonerations thanks to DNA evidence. That's 44 innocent people, some of whom would have been sent to death by Bush or Perry, with total certainty and cowboy swagger, looking for votes. God knows how many have been put to death like Willingham. How is that not a dereliction of their duty to look at all the evidence before signing a death sentence?
In the case of Willingham, Perry went even further. When the Texas Forensic Commission was set to evaluate the evidence that could have exonerated him, Perry replaced three members THE DAY BEFORE which caused the hearing to be cancelled - and probably sent an innocent man to death. (Link also below) How he calls himself a Christian I don't understand, as I don't understand how that supposedly Christian audience at the Reagan library applauded him or all the supposed Christians bemoaning abortions while advocating for the death penalty as "justice".
http://ipoftexas.org/index.php?action=at-a-glance
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Texas_Governor_Replaces_Forensic_Examiners.php
I suspect the death penalty is right in principle, and fatally flawed in practice. I firmly believe that people freely choose to perform actions so hideous that responding with anything short of their execution would be a moral failure. I'm also convinced that our system is too corrupt and political to live up to the moral standard required to enforce this principle.
(That made for an ambitious masters thesis proposal.)
As for abortion, of course there are limits. I'd say about 18 years old is right. After the kid reaches that age, you can't abort him (or her), no matter how many tattoos he fouls himself with. However, there's always the death penalty. See above.
I'll add one more thing, because of the red herring hypothetical question Carlos posted: if that question was asked of a pro-choice politician, you can be sure that the answer would not be faux-cowboy swaggering about how a few dead babies doesn't make me lose sleep. And no liberal audience would applaud a response like that.
Contrary to conservative myth, abortion isn't an easy decision, and liberals are just as committed to reduce them through prevention and education. (As opposed to those conservatives who are against sex ed.) You won't find one liberal politician or activist bragging about it.
One of the very few sensible remarks Mikey Dukakis ever offered during his debates with Monkey Boy's father was, "Nobody is pro-abortion," and went on to explain the difference between supporting a pro-choice position and encouraging the termination of life.
But such reasoning befuddles the average zealot, and proves too subtle a distinction for wingnut sound bites pandering to the pews.
Once upon a time I had an abortion issue to resolve and it was gut-wrenching. I made sure it never happened again. I guess, though, that's the wrong attitude: if I were Rick Perry, I'd brag about it and boast how I'd do it again and again.
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