The Death Penalty throughout history has been imposed on traitors, heretics, adulterers, thieves, murderers, rapists, arsonists, and the innocent. One of my distant family members was hung by the English for religious dissent in the late 1500s and more recently Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob in Carthage, Illinois in 1844. I have never committed a capital punishment crime.
Not a saint, just not deserving of such a final judgment.
58 nations condemn criminals to death at present. China executed over 5000 man and women in 2010. I witnessed a caravan of dead men walking in Chengdu back in 1995. The streets were lined with citizens watching the trucks heading to the local stadium. The condemned stood in the back of the trucks with lowered heads. No one said a word or cheered their passing. There was no hope of a governor granting a stay of execution.
They were doomed from the moment of arrest.
Capital punishment is a powerful issue in American politics.
In 1988 the Democratic presidential candidate was asked by the the moderator of a TV debate, “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis (his wife) were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”
The reply sealed the election for many viewers.
“No, I don’t, and I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life.”
His opponent, George Bush Senior, had operated the Contras for Reagan. The blood of hundreds of thousands of Central Americans were on his hands. He swept the nation for a 3rd straight GOP term.
Bill Clinton presided over four executions as governor or Arkansas. He witnessed the shooting of a cop killer, even though the murderer had shot himself in the head and was considered mentally incompetent by the State Courts. That ruthlessness paid off in the 1992 presidential election. Slick Willie further toughened his anti-crime stance by extending the federal death sentence to over 60 categories of criminals, although he also pardoned a condemned convict as president.
GW Bush executed over 150 death-row inmates during his governorship of Texas. He pardoned none and witnessed none. For the 2000 elections GW Bush scheduled executions to coincide with voting primaries. American voters loved the killer in him and he stole the presidency from Al Gore without any armed resistance from the plurality winner.
Al Gore was no killer.
Americans favor the death penalty 3 to 1.
If someone killed or hurt my kids or family member, I would get a gun and shoot them. No qualms about it. I’m no Michael Dukakis, but I am against the State taking lives. The police like to cut corners and the CSI TV shows lie about the accuracy of criminal investigations. Criminals snitch to get lighter sentences. Selling a friend to a murder rap is more common than divorce.
As a democratically elected mass-murderer GW Bush had no rival until fellow Texan Rick Perry ordered the deaths of 234 people. the 2012 presidential hopeful actually commuted one execution and banned the death penalty for mentally retarded inmates.
One more than GW.
His rhetoric rings true with the right.
“If you don’t support the death penalty…don’t come to Texas.”
Such talk has won him the support of 29% of the GOP and fans overseas.
“If Perry has been busy putting plenty of murdering scumbags to death then fair play to him and I hope he becomes President.
The public here in the UK want the death pen. But since we don’t have democracy how about sending our murdering scum over to the USA so Perry can fry ’em.”
Thank you for your comments.
Rick Perry is two years older than me. He married his high school sweetheart. Pro-life and pro-gun the governor is a Christian supporter of Israel.
“I’m a big believer that this country was given to the people of Israel a long time ago, by God, and that’s ordained.”
29% going into the kamikaze campaign for president.
He likes colorful jackets.
The Drudge Report loves him.
He shot a coyote dead with his pistol.
America loves a cowboy and this one is real.
Scary as a sober John Wayne.
“You want a president who would, in a rainstorm, grab America’s hand and take shelter with America in a nearby barn. Maybe help America out of its wet clothes. Maybe lay America down on some hay bales. And then, as America and Rick Perry become one, the sounds of their lovemaking merging with the thunderstorm’s cacophony, the barn shutters rattling, the livestock, the livestock they want to look away but they can’t, their eyes are transfixed. I am Rick Perry and, unlike Barack Obama, I will f*ck the shit out of America.”
Jon Stewart says it all.
Fuck Rick Perry.
He has had a vasectomy.
Ball less Texas mass murderer.
He’s no Charles Whitman.
Shooting like a madman from the Texas U tower.
Then again Rick Perry is a goat-roper from the A and M.
The Aggies know moo inside and out.
And that’s not a good thing either.