Executions and Death Sentences - the USA Has Very Nasty Company

While Americans view themselves as religious and many in the far right wear their religiosity - feigned or real - on their sleeves, the USA is keeping company with some very nasty countries and regimes when it comes to executing prisoners and awarding death sentences. Amnesty International notes:

The United States stayed in its dubiously bad place on this fundamental human rights issue. The U.S. was the only country in the Western hemisphere or the G8 to kill its prisoners, and was responsible for the fifth most known executions in the world, behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. (As an independent country, Texas would have ranked 7th, between North Korea and Somalia, with its 13 executions in 2011.)

To me, this expansive use of the death penalty underscores the hypocrisy of the Christianist supporters of executions. It also makes one wonder why Europe (which is so much maligned by the far right in this nation) generally has a far lower crime rate, far fewer guns in circulation and has nowhere the USA's need for the death penalty. Obviously, none of this speaks well about America.