At the tail of the red distribution
Where they love to deny evolution
There’s a troglodyte sort
With a strange sense of sport,
Who will cheer and applaud execution

Headline: GOP Debate: Thou shalt kill, cheer the Republicans

MODERATOR BRIAN WILLIAMS: Governor Perry, a question about Texas. Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. Have you…

(APPLAUSE)

Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?

PERRY: No, sir. I’ve never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which — when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that’s required.

But in the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you’re involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed.

WILLIAMS: What do you make of…

(APPLAUSE)

What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?

PERRY: I think Americans understand justice. I think Americans are clearly, in the vast majority of — of cases, supportive of capital punishment. When you have committed heinous crimes against our citizens — and it’s a state-by-state issue, but in the state of Texas, our citizens have made that decision, and they made it clear, and they don’t want you to commit those crimes against our citizens. And if you do, you will face the ultimate justice.

I once worked in a lab where we occasionally had to cull rats. It was not taken lightly; if you wanted that job, you could not have it. The idea was, killing is not trivial. This was with rats.

Perry has never struggled with killing his fellow human beings. Not even Cameron Todd Willingham, who (read the link) very likely did not commit the crime he was executed for. If Perry does not struggle with that, he is (not a professional diagnosis, but true nonetheless) a sociopath.

Edited to add…

I was so outraged by Perry’s comments that I completely forgot to be outraged by the fact that the fucking audience fucking applauded his fucking words. And the odds are that the vast preponderance of those clapping bastards are self-professed christians.