Capital Punishment

"The death penalty is murder and should be abolished." Do you agree?

Death penalty is not considered as murder beacuse murdering someone, to me, is after careful planning and furthermore, the victim did not do anything wrong but by sentencing someone to death, is because the accused had done something against the law and there's no motive behind it. If the accused had done something against the law and is sentenced the death penalty, it means that he had done something grave like drug trafficking and hence he should be responsible for his own actions. Since he know the consequences of doing something against the law, then he is asking for it. Another reason why it is not considered as murder beacuse it brings justice to the victim's family members and poses a threat to society. If the accused had killed someone and is acquitted, then how will the people and the family members think? So, I think the death penalty should not be abolished to serve as a reminder for people to constantly check on their actions and the consequences of it.

On the other hand, the death penalty is considered as murder because a person's life is precious. It should not be taken away just because he had done something wrong. Instead, the accused could be sent for counselling or other things to change his look on life and change him to a better person. Although the accused had done something wrong to be given the death penalty, but by killing him, it does not solve anything or make the victim feel better. Two wrongs do not make a right. Another reason why it is considered as murder because of the cruel froms of execution like the electric chair. Everyone should die in a dignified way and there should not be any forms of cruel execution. Therefore, i think the death penalty should be abolished to a certain extent.

In conclusion, I think that the death penalty should not be abolished because I think without it, people will think that there is no consequence for commiting crimes thus more crimes will be committed and people should be responsible for their actions.

CENSORSHIP

Consider the merits and demerits of censorship and state your reason why you think it is un/necessary.

Censorship is used to restrict things that are not meant for people of a certain age especially children. It could be because of the violence that it depicts or maybe even the wrong values that it will instill in young children example pornography.

But is it good to censor things or should we let the childern see the things that should be censored since they will have to face it sooner or later? Is it appropriate to shelter them from what is happening in the world and let them be naive thinking that everyone is trustable? This is what censorship does to people.

Without censorship, the world may be in chaos because wrong values will be taught to children. For example, showing a nine year old child violent scenes in a movie where people die for no reason, people taking revenge on their enemies or maybe even to the extent of limbs not being together with the corpse and muderers are not caught by the police. When he grow up, will he think that doing all these are common and he could get away so simply thus doing it? If thats the case, the world be in chaos with people taking revenge and killing each other.

Therefore, i think that censorship is necessary. Although they will be sheltered, not knowing whats happening, we can slowly introduce the various things at different age when they are appropriate to know instead of being open and let the small children know everything resulting in instilling the wrong values in them...

How does the media and its subjective perception affect the way this incident was handled?

The media can affect how things are handled because they choose to believe what is true instead of finding out the truth. In this case, the media happened to take the two swimmers 'smiling' while pointing at the disqualified list next to a television monitor and hence assuming that they're happy the Americans were disqualified. So, are the reporters reporting the truth or are they just making their own assumptions? It will lead to undesirable consequences if the incident was not properly handled. The media made the whole incident seemed like the Singapore swimmers were at fault by not carrying themselves with dignity at international meets whereas the Singapore Swimming Association stated otherwise, insisting that their ties with America is very strong and such a thing would not happen. According to the article, the swimmers explained that they smiled because it was 'hard to believe' and not beacuse of happiness. The media and its subjective perception could be indirectly accusing someone. If the media handled it in a better way, there would not be a controversy over Singapore swimmers showing bad sportsmanship and the report would not be widely-circulated across the globe. Therefore, i think that the media handled this incident very poorly by only believing what they see and not wanting to probe further into it. 'Different people will interepret those emotions and reactions in different ways.' It is how we look at them and whether we want to believe what we think is the truth or whether we want to find out the truth.