Evelyn Hinke
Block 1
Saturday September 20, 2015
Bursting the Protective Bubble
Abortion is a sin. The death penalty should be abolished. Donald Trump will make America great again. Fairlife is better than Trumoo. I don’t necessarily agree with all of these statements, but they are all widely discussed topics today. Did any of the comments make you feel uneasy?
In recent years, it has been more difficult for our generation to address difficult topics. We have a strong fear that if we say something opposing the status quo, we might be ridiculed or offend someone with the opposing view. How did we get here?
The answer most likely involves generational shifts. Childhood itself has changed greatly during the past generation. Imagine your parents’ childhoods. Many of them rode their bikes through the streets without any supervision by the time they were 8 years old. After school, they were expected to occupy themselves, getting minor bumps and bruises here and there, but learning from the experiences. Now, imagine your childhood. If it’s anything like mine, your parents hovered in the background, coming to the rescue whenever you fell down. They were simply trying to keep you safe, however this protective demeanor carried on through schooling and beyond. Now, rather than protecting you from physical harm, parents and society protect you from words, ideas and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense. We have become all too reliant on this protection, and when we
Elliot Spitzer states, “Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don 't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.” Although the Death Penalty is meant to kill the ones that have murdered, many innocent people have been executed due to the ignorance of facts during trial. Since this has come to me and my partner’s attention, we are resolved that The United States should change its penal code to abolish the death penalty. The Death Penalty is execution following someone’s conviction of murder or any other serious crime. Abolish is to end the observance or effect of. The Penal Code is a set of criminal laws of a particular country, society, etc. Our courts are not steady, which is why we need to abolish the death penalty.
I would like about whether or not the United States should abolish the death penalty. The United States should not abolish this because those who commit a capital felony which is punishable by imprisonment or death, should serve a capital punishment which is the death penalty. Many believe that certain crimes such as rape and murder should punishable by the death penalty. Although many also see it as inhumane, many also view murder and rape as inhumane. One can view this as part of Hammburi’s Code law that states “An eye for an eye.” Capital punishment has ben around for thousands of years; beginning even before the ancient Greeks and Romans. At that time, there were many different ways to carry out capital punishment such as, beheading, stoning and electrocution (PBS).
In society today, people are bombarded with many different social issues. These subjects raise a multitude of questions as men and women must find their stance on such matters. For example, the topic of abortion forces people to discover their position on such a procedure. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2011, there were 1.06 million abortions in the United States. In addition, this institute also says that “nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and about four in ten of these are terminated by abortion” (Guttmacher Institute, n.d.). Although many people argue that abortion is an acceptable action, abortion
Imagine that you are arrested and going to be tried for a crime that you did, or did not, commit. What if you cannot afford the cost of a lawyer? Will you be able to handle the physical and mental toll that all of the appeals have on a person? The death penalty, or capital punishment, is one of the most debated topics in America. It has been used for centuries, but many claim it to be barbaric, and want the practice to end all together. The death penalty should only be used in cases where there is absolute evidence that the criminal is guilty, because life in prison can be an alternative, there are many flaws in the justice system, and it can be a cruel and unusual punishment.
I often asked myself why it's so easy for me to talk about a large number of social issues with my close friends and family, yet when it comes to voicing my opinions to others, I am wary. It seems as though I'm only comfortable with voicing my opinions about controversial social issues to those who also share the same views as I do. Rather than stepping out of my comfort zone to talk about these issues directly to those who oppose my opinions, I retreat to instead reading about the opposing sides. In retrospect, I've noticed that discussing issues with those who agree with you is like “preaching to the choir.” I believe that being involved in an open dialogue with those who have different opinions from my own is a much more effective way to induce progressive thought. In attempting to discover a reason for why this may be the case, I cannot help but think that it is in part due to my upbringing. My mother has always been very reserved when it comes to discussing controversial issues with others. In addition, she would
I notice myself being careful to ensure my words aren’t minced and my ideas aren’t misconstrued. Last year when I was driving my neighbors to school when I said I didn’t like Obama’s reluctance to reform social programs, to which one girl shot back at me with “Do you hate women? And black people?” I immediately felt the need to qualify my own statement, reminding her that my father is visibly black and I am a woman. But now that memory stands out to me as an example of our unwillingness or perhaps even our inability to engage with those who have opposing
Since 2000, there have been over 200 exonerations from death row. More than half of these exonerations are because of DNA evidence that is found which proves a defendant innocent. The reason for these exonerations is that people make mistakes, there is no way to be fully positive of somebody else’s guilt. In some cases, evidence found against a defendant could just come down to bad timing. People may agree or disagree with capital punishment because it can become a very controversial topic. The main argument against the death penalty is that it is no longer morally correct and goes against certain beliefs. The death penalty should remain illegal in Canada because it costs more for taxpayers than life without the possibility of parole, it
The death penalty is a very controversial topic in America today, the question is do we keep the death penalty or abolish it for life imprisonment without parole. America should abolish the death penalty and should stick to life imprisonment. One reason is that the death penalty is not undoable once your dead there is no going back. There has been many miscarried death penalties in the U.S., and these mistakes cause a lot of sorrow and depression for families and their loved ones. The death penalty is also too expensive. It costs America less to keep an inmate in jail for life than it does to execute them. This is why America should abolish the death penalty.
This is a time were people feel offended most of the times, due to the verity of the many different races and social groups who were raised in deferent areas in the world, and are living now in one place. And a good example of these places are the American campuses, they are full of foreign students from all around the world. These places are dense with people around the globe and each one of them have their own expectations about others and each one of them have his stereo types about others around him. That said and what happened in the past from wars and the relation between races and social groups in the past count to what make students feel offended from some words, and increasingly feel the need of protection from ideas and words they don’t like.
Some reasons why childhood has changed during the past generation are the crimes surged from the 60’s through the early ‘90s, stories of abducted children appeared constantly in the news and this created fear in many parents. The society changed, people seem to have more malicious and that is why parents started to be more cautious.
Death row is not only morally wrong, but it is telling the murders that killing someone for doing something wrong is right. Since August, 6, 1912, there have been two hundred and eighty-two executions, done by the state of South Carolina (South Carolina Department of Corrections, 2016.) Death row should be abolished, not only does it give inmates the impression that an eye for an eye is okay, but it puts innocent people lives at risk. Death row costs taxpayers millions of dollars, and it is a violation of the eight amendments.
The Death Penalty Should Not Be Abolished, written by Bruce Fein, is about Fein’s viewpoints and arguments that death penalty abolitionists are unpersuasive and do not stand up to close scrutiny. He also points out that some crimes are so morally abhorrent and despicable that only the death penalty is adequate punishment for them.
American model and actress Carre Otis once said, “Exposing any subject that is argumentative means risking judgement, but these are the topics that need to be talked about the most.” She, and many others like myself, believe that a copious amount of controversial matters need to be resolved by public discussion. Quite a few of these subjects have a more positive effect in the United States when they are foregone. Currently some of the most talked about issues are the right to have an abortion, the legalization of gay marriage, and the rights that gun owners have. These topics may be disputable, but if people are fully informed they can see the obvious positive outcomes that these matters create.
Capital crime is something that is meant for people that are found guilty of committing a serious crime, such as murder, rape, or theft. These are offences that should not be taken lightly but by killing the offender, the government is carrying about the action that they are trying to prevent. Also, the wrong person may be sentenced to death. After this person is executed, there is obviously nothing that can be done for the terrible mistake to be reversed. The death penalty should be abolished because it is more expensive than life imprisonment, numerous innocent people are condemned to death row, and it is cruel and inhumane.
They have taught their children to stand up when words or ideas bother them, but this has lead to a complete intolerance of many innocent phrases and opinions. For example, college students have begun to restrict the words that professors say because they may be offensive to other cultures or people (Lukianoff and Haidt). Granted, there are definitely some words and phrases that are completely unacceptable, but many students have brought this to a new extreme. As a result of the overprotective parenting they grew up with, the students can no longer deal with opposition of any form. Many of them believe that they are being discriminated and treated unequal, when in fact they are overdramatizing it and making it seem like a bigger issue than it really is. While this does help them grow as children in a supportive world, it shields them from what the real world is like. They have become completely intolerant and thin skinned in a world that is very harsh and ruthless. The safe environment that parents created for children allowed them to develop the sense that anything is possible, but it also shielded them from the real world and how cruel it can