AT THE Republican candidates’ debate on September 7th, Brian Williams, the moderator, noted that while Rick Perry has governed Texas, the state has executed more criminals than any other state: 234. The crowd cheered. At least one of the men whose executions Mr Perry oversaw appears to have been innocent. Under Mr Perry’s watch Texas has killed the mentally ill, criminals who were juveniles when they committed their crimes, and criminals who lacked adequate counsel. In answering Mr Williams, Mr Perry said that “when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens…you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas. And that is, you will be executed.” The crowd cheered again. Some said the crowd was “cheering death”. I don’t think that’s true. Or rather, it may be literally true, but it is a rather sneering and unhelpful caricature. James Taranto wrote that the applause was “less sanguinary than defiant”—they were expressing contempt for “the liberal elite” that opposes the death penalty. This is more plausible, though it does imply that they were cheering themselves for cheering the death penalty, which is hardly more comforting. Perhaps they were also cheering the notion of retribution. The idea that if you do wrong you get what’s coming to you animates Westerns and crime fiction, both distinctly American genres; small wonder it should find fertile political ground too. But here’s the thing: life is not a movie or a novel. Reality has no obligation to provide us with a clear narrative or villain, and it rarely does.
via - The Economist, “A Death in Georgia”
