Give me liberty or give me death. Or both.

There was a disturbing moment in the otherwise predictable and sensible GOP debate Wednesday night.

Near the end of the debate, the moderator, Brian Williams, asked Texas Gov. Rick

Perry the following question: “Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might be innocent?”

After the bizarre applause that erupted after Williams’ introductory sentence, Perry vehemently answered in the negative. He does not have trouble sleeping.

That’s simply Texas justice.

But you have to wonder what goes on in Perry’s mind when you consider the fact that out of the 234 executed inmates, one might very well have been convicted and executed based on faulty scientific evidence. Such is the case with Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for allegedly arson-murdering his three daughters.

Upon reinvestigation, four arson experts concluded that there was no clear sign of arson.

Perry and anyone who supports the death penalty should ask themselves a question: Can 234 federal executions be justified if there is a shadow of a doubt that one of those inmates might be innocent? In other words, can you allow one innocent man to be executed in exchange for the death of 233 guilty inmates?

There is also a theoretical problem with Perry’s avid defense of Texas’ record of killing inmates. The GOP debate was mainly concerned with the unconstitutional growth of government that has occurred in the past decade and different steps that could be taken to undo that growth.

“Small government” is the mantra that the Republican candidates have taken on to rally support for the ideological campaign against Barack Obama’s big-government, big-spending administration. But if you rally for limited government, as Perry does, how can you theoretically justify giving government the right to take a human life?

Republicans don’t trust the government to run the economy. How can they trust it to decide whom to execute?

The death penalty is just one instance of the inconsistency of mainstream Republican thinking. (This is not to say that Democratic thinking is consistent. It is just as inconsistent but in the reciprocal.) Republicans may be right concerning big government’s unconstitutional manipulation of the economy and the Democrats’ stifling of the free market, but what of the numerous unconstitutional wars — sorry, “armed conflicts” — authorized by the government?

Why is this not as pressing a concern for Republicans as Obamacare or Keynesian economic policies? Is it more wrong to spend billions of dollars to try and revive an economy than to meddle in the affairs of other countries?

If, as Republicans are arguing, we should fight for the freedom to not have health insurance, what about the freedom of those who recreationally smoke pot? Or of those who cannot marry? Or of those like Cameron Todd Willingham?

If the Republicans want to be viewed as the restorers of American liberty, they must apply the idea of liberty to all areas of life, which includes abolishing the government’s right to kill its citizens.

­— sdance@indiana.edu