AMERICA:Republican presidential debate audiences don't even pretend to have compassion these days
GEORGE W Bush made “compassionate conservatism” the centrepiece of his social policies. But the idea that churches and charities should bear responsibility for the poor and disabled was always a disingenuous cop-out, the political expression of “I am not my brother’s keeper”.
These days American conservatives don’t even pretend to be compassionate. As shown by two shocking moments in Republican presidential debates this week, they’re proud of being heartless.
At the Republican debate in Tampa on September 12th, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked the Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul what should happen to a 30-year-old man in a coma who had no medical insurance. The census report published on Wednesday showed the number of people in the US with no coverage has risen to 49.1 million.
“Who pays?” Blitzer asked.
“That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks,” Paul replied. “This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody...” Paul is a medical doctor. One can’t help wondering what happened to the Hippocratic oath.
“But congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?” Blitzer persisted.
Cheers of “Yeah! Yeah!” burst from the audience. Paul said it was up to “our neighbours, our friends, our churches” to look after the hypothetical comatose patient. Michele Bachmann, who prides herself on being a born-again Christian, ignored the question and launched into a rant against President Obama’s healthcare Bill. It took Mitt Romney, who ranks second among Republican hopefuls, three days to dissociate himself from the Roman circus bloodlust of the crowd. The front-runner, Texas governor Rick Perry, other candidates and the Tea Party Express, which co-sponsored the debate, have remained silent.
The other shocking moment occurred at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California on Wednesday night, when NBC’s Brian Williams asked Perry about executions in Texas. The Lone Star state has executed 234 people under Perry, a record surpassing even his predecessor, George W Bush. As they had in Florida two days earlier, the audience applauded for death.
On the same day that Perry delivered a 20-minute speech about his close relationship with God, Williams asked the Republican front-runner: “Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?”
“No sir, I’ve never struggled with that at all,” Perry replied. “The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process ... you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer ... you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas and that is you will be executed.” Williams asked Perry why the audience applauded when he’d mentioned the 234 executions. “I think Americans understand justice,” Perry said.
“I think Americans are clearly, in the vast majority of cases, supportive of capital punishment.”
Former governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the Republican presidential race. ‘T-Paw’ was plenty conservative, but as the Washington Post notes, “he oozed ‘nice guy’.” Rick Perry knows that in US politics, nice guys finish last. So long live heartless America.
This is the mindset that Amnesty International, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and hundreds of thousands of opponents of the death penalty are up against as they fight for the life of Troy Davis.
Davis is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Georgia next Wednesday. This is the fourth time Davis (42) has been slated to die – surely a form of torture. Davis was convicted of the 1989 killing of Mark Mac Phail, an off-duty police officer in Savannah. Ten witnesses have recanted their testimony, saying police coerced them into implicating Davis. Nine people signed affidavits saying another man killed Mac Phail.
Protesters delivered 663,000 signatures demanding clemency for Davis to the Georgia pardons board on Thursday. Amnesty held an International Day of Solidarity for Davis yesterday. Amnesty Ireland held a vigil at the GPO last night and intended to collect signatures in Dublin and Galway all weekend, to be faxed to the board on Monday morning.
Former president Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI have appealed for clemency for Davis. Fifty-one Democratic members of Congress signed a letter expressing “considerable doubts as to Troy Davis’s guilt”.
In an opinion piece for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, William Sessions, who served as FBI director under three presidents, two of them Republicans, said the US has two justice systems, “one for those with access to the media and legal counsel, and a second system for low-profile defendants who can’t afford a good attorney”. We won’t know until Monday if the Georgia board will commute Davis’s sentence to life in prison. One thing is certain. As Sessions writes: “In the absence of outside scrutiny, there is no question that Georgia would send Mr Davis to God without a single qualm.”
