Inconsistency of Conservative support of the death penalty
Finally someone made a necessary statement on the Sunday morning shows that highlights the inconsistency of the Conservative position on the death penalty. Usually it is discussed in an antiseptic manner without any ideological attachment.
George Stephanopoulos was surprised that the Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received the death penalty in Massachusetts. Political analyst Matthew Dowd was surprised as well. But most importantly he used the opportunity to excoriate Conservatives for their blind support of the death penalty.
“I was surprised too,” Matthew Dowd said. “My personal opinion on the death penalty — I find it amazing that Conservatives are all for the death penalty, the government involvement in the taking of a life but they are not for the government involvement in healthcare and the saving of a life? I don’t get sort of the disposition in this case. [sic] I think the death penalty twenty years from now, it is going to be the same people that are for the death penalty in the same place that people that are against gay marriage are twenty years from now. The death penalty is going to go the way of opposition to gay marriage.”
Dowd could have added that the rabid objection to abortion, which according to the law and to many scientists is not the taking of a life, is inconsistent with their support for killing humans with the death penalty.
Journalist Cokie Robert responded that she hopes that Matthew Dowd is right. She said that now that doctors are starting to object and are not partaking in the practice, it is raising the debate. She also said religious people are playing a more active role in their objection.
And then there was the Conservative panelist. “There are some crimes that are so heinous and that so affect our national psyche, that even Liberals are OK with the death penalty,” Ana Navarro interjected. “And I think this is one of them.”
Change comes slowly. Sometimes even when it involves the saving of lives.