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I’m not a big fan of the death penalty…… September 10, 2011

Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, blogfoolery, Dallas Diocese, foolishness, General Catholic, sadness, scandals, sickness, Society.
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….that is to say, I’m opposed in principle, but I’m not going to expend great energy fighting against it, when there are so many bigger battles to fight and every person put to death is undeniably guilty of a heinous crime.  But when I saw that Catholic blogger Lisa Grass had tweeted a leading question,which implied she didn’t understand how a faithful Catholic could support a man who had “overseen” 230 executions, as Rick Perry has, I was quite disappointed (again).

The implications from this question, which is really a statement, are enormous.  Does that mean in a Perry vs. Obama contest, she would support Obama?  Even if only referring to the primaries, the assumptions going into this statement are both very large, and very wrong.   I am not aware that any Republican candidate is strongly against the death penalty, to the point that they would work to block executions.  In fact, most candidates are in favor of it to one degree or another, simply due to the fact that a large majority of Americans are in favor of the death penalty (between 60-70%), and the death penalty is considered, wrongly, ‘settled law.’  Perry is not unusual as a Texas governor with regard to executions. Bush oversaw about the same rate of executions (about ~25 per year), and Richards wasn’t much below that. The next governor will likely oversee about the same rate of executions, if not slightly more because many appeals processes are coming to an end (but, the rate of capital crimes has been dropping, so I could be a little off).

The main reason that Perry has overseen so many executions is that he has been governor for so long – 2 years longer than any other Texas governor.  There is little evidence to suggest that any of the other major Republican candidates (Bachmann, Paul, Romney, Santorum (not major, he hasn’t a prayer)) would have had appreciably fewer executions under the same circumstances (I’ve not seen any talk about how they would roll back the death penalty- that issue is unfortunately a non-starter for Republicans). Texas is simply a very pro-death penalty state, sadly.  It is my assertion  that no other candidate would have significantly different results had they been Texas governor in the period 2000-present (as if Romney could even be elected here – he’s significantly to the left of most democrats in this state).

So I don’t get the question by Grass.  I think it was actually cheap and unthinking, and plays to the advantage of the real enemies of life, those who support daily the murder of more, totally innocent, lives every single day than have ever been executed in Texas, all years combined.  I’m not sure who she supports, and don’t really care.  Perry has by far the best shot to beat the greatest enemy of life this country has ever seen in the White House.  Many polls confirm this.  I believe Grass is truly committed to supporting life from conception to natural death as the Church believes, but it’s sad that she chose what amounts to a democrat club to beat down the leading candidate.  I pray we don’t see similar nonsensical ‘questions’ from other Catholics.