Political Courage an Oxymoron

The South Carolina Senate will soon have to vote on a proposal to give the death penalty to recidivist child molesters. Senator Brad Hutto is against the amendment on the grounds that it would cause victims' families unnecessary trauma, and that the state would have to fight costly constitutional challenges. But he'll be one of the few voting nay, he predicts. The merits of the proposal will not be fairly and openly discussed, says Hutto,

"...because who wants to stand up here saying 'I voted against being tough on child molesters'? Maybe one or two of us would have the political courage to do that, but you know it would mean the next 30-second ad against you when you ran the next time saying you didn't vote to be tough on child molesters."

Re-electability over principles. It's a fair assessment Hutto makes — and sad proof of how public debate can be shut down preemptively.

Comments

[ortho]

Good point on the courage-of-your-convictions thing but if we have the death penalty for child molesters....won't they likely just kill the kids the molest to lessen the chances of getting caught? (sorta similar to the executing rapists argument)