We've written about how death penalty-happy Rick Perry is. But bless him, guest host Ron Reagan really narrowed down the question that we must address if we want to be honest about having a death penalty:

How many innocent people is it permissible to kill in order to exact vengeance on the guilty?

There's no easy answer for that if you're still advocating for the death penalty.

Personally, I'm against the death penalty. I've participated in protests and vigils against it. It horrifies me that we're one of the only Western nations still acting so barbarically. But besides that, the death penalty has inherent flaws:

[The application of the death penalty is often] racist, unfair to poor and the mentally retarded, and often ends in the state sanctioned murder of innocents.

• Less than 1% of all murderers are condemned to death

• 2% of death row inmates are actually executed

• Over 113 people on death row have been exonerated since 1973

• 68% of the death penalty convictions between 1973 - 1995 were reversed

• Today more than 75 death row inmates have spent 20 years on the Row.

• Capital punishment is applied to a higher percentage of minorities than whites.

It is not cost effective: Capital murder trials threaten to bankrupt townships costing taxpayers:

• $2 million in legal fees to try a death penalty case, nearly 4 times higher than comparable murder trials.

• The automatic appeal process costs up to $700,000 in legal fees.

• $1.2 million in execution costs.

• 1973 -1998, Florida spent $57 million on 18 executions.

It is does not deter crime: The European Union (EU) is opposed to the death penalty in all cases and is "deeply concerned about the increasing number of executions in the United States of America (USA), all the more since the great majority of executions since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 have been carried out in the 1990s. Furthermore, in the US, young offenders who are under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the crime may be sentenced to death and executed, in clear infringement of internationally recognized human rights norms." Russia and Turkey have abolished the death penalty which is condemned by the European Union and the World Court, which claimed that the U.S. violated the rights of 51 Mexicans on death rows in eight states. Despite a U.S. Supreme Court ban, Texas has continued to send mentally retarded criminals to death row. Will a Mexican immigrant's case correct this injustice? The two states with the most executions in 2003, Texas 24, and Oklahoma 14, saw increases in their murder rates from 2002 to 2003. Both states had murder rates above the national average in 2003: Texas - 6.4, and Oklahoma - 5.9. The top 13 states in terms of murder rates were all death penalty states. The murder rate of the death penalty states increased from 2002, while the rate in non-death penalty states decreased.Death Penalty Information Center

So it's ineffective as a deterrent, applied inequitably, unfairly focusing on the poor, mentally challenged and minorities, costs more than life in prison and we're basically applying the same punishment that countries we hold up as barbaric do?

What exactly is the benefit of the death penalty except for Rick Perry's bloodlust?

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[H/t CSpanJunkie]

If you ever needed evidence that right-wingers have no boundaries -- in terms logic, ethics, or basic decency -- that they will not trample all over in the defense of conservative "values" and leaders, check out Pam "Atlas Wanks Shrugs" Geller earlier this week on the Joy Behar show (along with Stephanie Miller), trying to tell Ron Reagan Jr. that his father would have been a big fan of Sarah Palin:

Behar: Ronald, let me ask Ron -- why do we pay attention to this woman? She has a point.

Reagan: Well, indeed, and I think we do have to pay attention to her, unfortunately -- it's sad that we have to pay attention to her, because she's totally unqualified for high office. Yet --

Geller: Your father would love her. Your father would love her.

Miller: First of all, his father didn't quit halfway through the term.

Geller: Neither did she. Neither did she. She did not quit. The Lower 48 needed her, and she heeded the call. She did not take the easy way out.

Reagan: No, she quit. No, Pam, she quit. When you leave the governorship halfway through your first term, it's called quitting. She quit.

Geller: She came to lead the next revolution.

Reagan: Quit. Quit.

Behar: Ron, Ron -- no, I want to hear from Ron. Why would your father not like this woman?

Reagan: Because she doesn't have a thought in her head. That's why.

Geller: That's what they said about your father.

Reagan: My father knew what he stood for, you can agree with it or disagree with it, he knew how -- what he stood for, he could explain what he stood for. He was conversant in domestic and foreign policy -- she's neither! She can't explain where she stands on anything!

Geller: Your father would love her, and frankly I don't think you can speak for your father, because you -- you don't even espouse --

Reagan: No, Pam, actually, have you ever met my father, Pam? Pam, did you ever meet my father?

Geller: Did you ever meet the Founding Father. I've read everything he said. I've read everything he said.

Reagan: Did you ever meet my father? I'm asking you a simple question. You can't answer that because the answer is no. So why don't you rely on someone who knew him very well to tell you what he would think of Sarah Palin.

Behar: It's really hard for you to argue with the offspring of the guy and claim you know more than he does.

Geller: He's nothing like the father! He doesn't share the epistemology of the father. He doesn't have the nature of his father, the knowledge -- he has nothing in common with the father. Look --

Behar: He knows what his father would think rather than you.

[Crosstalk]

Reagan: Is Pam still blathering about me and my father? Oh, you are. You still haven't met him, though, right? You still didn't know him, so you're just sort of making things up as you go along, right?

Geller: You never met him either. You know, you never met him either. Do you think you're making your father proud? Do you really think you're making your father proud?

Gateway Pundit thinks Geller "destroyed" Reagan. Um, okaaaay.

See what I mean? These people are from another planet.

Via The All Spin Zone

Found this comment on the blog for Ron Reagan Jr. and Monica Crowley's new MS-GOP show, Connected Coast-to-Coast, regarding the Kansas AG's order to turn over abortion records:

Isn't it interesting that when the prosecutor came and seized Rush Limbaugh's records (for taking massive amounts of narcotics), the far right was outraged. Now, it seems to be okay to seize medical records? —BMC

Indeed.