David Todd

Title	David Todd
# of Words	878
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.51

David Todd
Eng. 102
Arnett
Essay #5

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right?

     The question of whether capital punishment is right or wrong is a truly tough choice to make.  Capital punishment (death penalty) is legal because the government of the United States of America says that it is all right to execute another human being if their crimes are not punishable by other means.  There are many different forms of capital punishment.  Some of the most popular ones have been hanging, firing squad, electrocution (the chair), the gas chamber, and the newest lethal injection.  In the readings of George Orwell, Edward I. Koch, and Jacob Weisberg, there are incites to capital punishment that are not usually thought of or expressed aloud.  Also in the movie "Dead Man Walking," the act of lethal injection, a form of capital punishment, is presented and made visual for one’s eyes.  Both the readings and the movie hit on emotions that some people have never thought about feeling.
With the many people in the world there are many different feelings on capital punishment.  Upon reading George Orwell’s "A Hanging," the reader can obviously see that the writer is against capital punishment.  Orwell brings out many of the points that are considered for argument against the death penalty.  Orwell writes
"It is curious; but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man.  When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide.  This man was not dying, he was alive just as we are alive."
In this quote Orwell brings out the emotion of knowing that what is being executed may seem like a monster, but the fact remains that the prisoner is still a human being.  Orwell also brings out the point that when we were a society that conducted hangings, the executioner would put a bag over the prisoners head.  This was basically to make it so we didn’t have to watch the facial expressions of the dying because it would make society feel guilty.
     Another writer against capital punishment is Jacob Weisberg.  In Weisburg’s "This Is Your Death," the reader must take into account that most of the public is immune to seeing violence on the TV and that broadcasting executions live would just be another form of entertainment.  Weisberg writes also about the inhumane and cruel death penalties we have devised to kill criminals.  Weisberg tells of the pain and suffering of the prisoners that goes on during an execution.  Even if one was watching, one may not...

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