TV ads tend to just aggravate me...

I voted this past week.  Absentee balloting is just one of the best inventions ever created.  I'm all about sending in my paper ballot, but I'm really waiting for online voting to become viable.  Everyone knows I love technology. But that's not why I'm writing.  Instead, I want to put forth that the top of my ballot contained a mark in column for Jerry Brown for Governor.  I say this not because I expect other people to follow my example, but because I am so relieved I made that choice.

I don't watch television anything like I used to.  In fact, I really only watch live sports on TV, or perhaps a very important news event.  Part of it is that I feel like I can find better things to do with my time than just let the television tell me what my time-spending options are, and part of it is that I can't stand commercials.  Especially ones like this one, seen during today's Niners-Raiders game:



Now, I'm highly supportive of our law enforcement officers.  I am happy to pay the part of my taxes that goes to pay their salaries.  They are not my problem with this video.  No, Meg Whitman has chosen these cops to convey her message: the death penalty is awesome.

Isn't that the message you get?  It's a flashy commercial, with quick cuts, panning shots, and flashing lights.  It's an action commercial.  And in just 15 seconds, she uses these law enforcement officers to smoothly tell you that the most important reason they can think of to vote against Jerry Brown is because of his "real story": Jerry Brown opposes the death penalty. ("Even for cop killers!")

I've actually spent the last few days thinking about the death penalty.  It started with a Newsweek article from a few weeks ago.  Money quote:

The government, GOP politicians suggest, can’t run a three-car funeral. It’s unaccountable, intrusive, and has too much power to revoke people’s rights. But when it comes to the ultimate right—life—these same conservatives almost invariably view the government’s actions as flawless and not subject to review even if injustice surfaces. Who’s arrogant now?

Indeed.  The article raises such an important question:  What happens when we execute an innocent person?  Additionally, I'm left to wonder: how many innocent people have we already executed?

That question led me to another article mentioned in the Newsweek story, this one from The New Yorker.  This is the story of Cameron Todd Willingham, written last year.  I warn you, it's a long read, but I guarantee that you'll never look at the death penalty in the same way again.

Full disclosure: before reading these, I was already a staunch supporter of abolishing the death penalty.  I think that there is no reason to take anyone's life, via war, crime, or death penalty.  I think that anyone that commits a crime currently deemed death penalty worthy should instead sit in a cell for the rest of their lives, not able to be freed.  The death penalty takes someone's life, but additionally allows for someone to escape guilt (should they have any).  I think the death penalty is no deterrent, especially for people like gang members or drug cartels.  Don't they face death every day in their life?

So, it's not hard to get me started down this direction, but I wasn't quite fired up about it until today, when I saw the Meg Whitman ad.  In California, we almost had an execution a few weeks ago, stayed only by the hand of the court in allowing more time to decide if the new method of execution is the constitutionally right way to do it and the expiration date of the drugs involved in the lethal injection.  So it's no surprise to me that this issue has made it onto the airwaves and into the gubernatorial debate.  And I want to ask Meg the question: what happens when the state executes an innocent person?  How do we rectify the situation?  What are you going to say to the families involved of the deceased?  How is any apology going to make up for the most enormous error on our part?

I say our part, because it really is our choice.  We, as residents of the state of California, currently as the state to perform functions in our stead, functions we are unable to complete on our own.  We do this in full knowledge that the state is operating on our behalf.  Sometimes this is good (roads!).  Sometimes, this isn't (execution).  Don't we worship "We, The People" for a reason.  It is a government of us, by us, and for us.  So when the state does something, really it is the "We" of the entire state doing something.  The next time the state executes a person, we have killed a person.  The next time the state executes and innocent person, we will have murdered an innocent person.

Can you live with that?  I can't.

I can't abide lacking compassion for the downtrodden, even those who may have slighted us in the worst ways.   I can't abide disregarding the importance of life everywhere, for everyone.  I can't abide love taking backseat to vengeance and hatred.

I voted for Jerry Brown for many reasons.  I don't claim him to be the perfect choice.  I don't claim to be excited about choosing him.  But I am satisfied today in the vote I made because I choose life and love, and I couldn't abide myself if I had done otherwise.