Today's episode of "The West Wing" was about the White House trying to find a reason to commute a death sentence. A man had been sentenced to death in the Federal Courts for the murder of two police officers in a drug-related crime. The lawyers had appealed the verdict up to the Supreme Court, which had denied the appeal. The White House had expected the Supreme Court to send the case back to the 6th Circuit for reconsideration. Now they had 48 hours to determine if and why the President should commute the sentence.

In the show, just about all the characters were against the Death Penalty. Mostly the reason seemed to be religious in nature: man (or the state) does not have the right to kill another man. And yet the President has not commuted a Death Penalty since Abraham Lincoln, which I assume is true. We have a well established judiciary system to make sure that a convict receives a just and fair trial; and especially so where the Death Penalty is concerned.

The President didn't want to step in and set a precedent, and perhaps undermine the judicial system. There was also the point that 70% of Americans supported the Death Penalty -- although that seems less likely to be true in real life -- and the President had to take that into consideration. One of the things he did was call The Pope for advice, which was probably a bad idea since if he does then step in, people who feared having a devout Catholic in the White House would be justified in their apprehensions.

That seems weird to me. The fact that we bestow a lot of power on one person and then don't trust him to do a good job. Crazy people, stupid people, really unscrupulous people don't get elected President. Few people do things just for the sake of power, and those that do don't get that far in politics. I don't think that politicians are bad people, they do have to make more compromises than other people, and their decisions affect a lot of people. It's hard to tell why people do things, since there is usually no simple answer to that. We have to trust that people in power will do the right thing most of the time, if for no other reason than if they don't they'll get torn down by their peers.

Personally, I don't think that people have the right to kill other people. Killing in self defense may be justifiable, but it's not right. In constrast, the state does have the right to kill people, or to appoint people to kill other people. I'm not quite religious enough to take "vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord" as meaning people, including the state, can't take a life for a life. I think the Death Penalty is a great deterrent, although it won't stop the truly desperate. It at least makes people who have something to lose a pause. People who don't think they have anything to lose you can't deter with any promise of punishment.

Statistics are poor arguments to me. In the show they bring up the part that the US has the fifth highest Death Penalty rate, behind Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, and a couple of other extremist-type countries. And we certainly don't want to be like those countries. But we're not, just because we have something in common doesn't make us the same. I see this kind of argument all the time: compare two different things, show that one attribute is the same and then conclude that the other attributes will be the same. It's an unsophisticated argument style.

Bill Maher of Politically Incorrect was on Larry King today. He has a sceptical view of politicians and people. One thing he brought up is that John Rocker should not be reprimanded by Major League Baseball for the rather offensive comments he made about New York City. Sure, what he said Maher found offensive. But if your employer fires you or punishes you for what you say in private, especially if it has nothing to do with your employer, then they're taking away your freedom of speech. Although I do think freedom of speech is overrated, it is an Amendment so we have to support it, as long as other Amendments aren't violated. I don't think that just because you have the right to say something doesn't mean I have to listen to it.