The pro-death Republican party

Don't let anyone ever tell you that the Republicans are "pro-life."  My friends, that is a bald-faced lie.  The GOP is many things -- pro-business, pro-intrusive government, anti-science, and anti-liberty -- but pro-life is not one of them. 

Republicans do tend to be pro-embryo.  I'll give them that.  They'd rather a woman die in child-birth than to have an abortion, and they'd execute a woman for having a miscarriage, if she can't prove her innocence.  But pro-life?  Not at all.  Republicans love death.

Republican Congressman Ron Paul

Did anyone catch the GOP debate last night?  At one point, Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul what should be done with a 30 year old without insurance, but who needed hospitalization to live.  Ron wouldn't come out and say it, but his answer did imply that he should be left to die.  But as horrible as that is, that's not what scares me the most. 

Blitzer followed up by asking point blank, ""Are you saying society should just let him die?" 

And the crowd cheered, "Yeah!"

These people don't care about life.  They don't care about people at all.  The candidates themselves might be too timid to come out and say it, but their supporters aren't.  They like death.  I won't claim to know why.  Maybe it makes them feel powerful, to know that others are dying while they continue to live.  Maybe they get a visceral thrill from imagining anyone they disagree with dying, unaided.


Republican Governor Rick Perry

After all, this is the same group of people who cheered at Rick Perry's record breaking 234 executions.  It was the biggest applause of the night, and for what?  For Rick Perry's callous disregard of human life.  For his driving desire to kill a man, even when the evidence shows that the prisoner is innocent.  When a government committee gathered evidence disputing the conviction, Perry fired them, rather than have the new evidence considered.

One Republican voter commented about the charge, "It takes balls to execute an innocent man."

You read that right.  The execution of an innocent man might have actually helped Rick Perry's campaign.

Friends, I'm not entirely against the death penalty.  The sad fact of the matter is that there are some people out there that just don't have any business being alive anymore.  If a person disrespects the lives of others to that degree, then maybe we don't need to respect his, either.  The problem is that there's no court in the country that's 100% perfect, all the time.  People make mistakes, even when they're judges, even when they're jurors.  And until someone's killed, there's always a possibility that person will turn out to actually be innocent.

Now look at how Rick Perry does things.  He suppressed evidence that could have freed an innocent man.  And why?  Because he'd rather kill that innocent man than let him go. There's no word for that other than bloodthirsty.  And it was that bloodthirstiness, that blatant disregard for an American citizen's life, that got Perry a cheering applause at that GOP debate.

So what have we got here?  We've got two viable Republican candidates: Rick Perry, whose supporters applaud the reckless execution of innocent citizens, and Ron Paul whose supporters call out for the lingering death of anyone without insurance.

Don't ever let the Republican party tell you they're pro-life.  They're nowhere close.