… clap your hands? Here’s the neat takeaway from Rod Dreher, registering his disgust at Real Clear Religion as the applauseometer jumped when Gov. Rick Perry defended Texas’ indefensible record on capital punishment:

It is worth contemplating why it is that conservatives who believe the government is incompetent in most areas of its agency are willing to assent credulously to its unerring competence when it comes to exercising the ultimate power over its citizenry: killing them.

Read the rest here.

Kevin Clarke is America’s chief correspondent and the author of Oscar Romero: Love Must Win Out (Liturgical Press).