Freedom of expression

I think that the government of Singapore should use both ways as expressed in the two different articles. The government should allow freedom of speech to a certain extent only and encourage its citizens to exercise their social responsibility through educating its people.

Freedom of expression is rather essential to democracy but there should be a limit to freedom of expression. Would you like if someone from another race or religion insults your race or religion? If you cannot accept that people do so, you should not be insulting or commenting on other races or religion. But that does not mean that if you do not mind about people commenting on your religious ways you can go around insulting other people’s as one must stand in other people’s shoes and understand other people’s feelings. In a multi racial country like Singapore its citizens must be sensitive to the other religions and races of the country. We must bare in mind it is due to such “freedom of expression” where members of the UMNO were allowed to run communal campaigns thus leading in the1964 racial riots in Singapore due to conflicts and resentment agitated by Syed Jaafar Albar. Therefore we must keep in mind that it is important respect other people’s race.

Although freedom of expression is essential to democracy it is important that one must exercise social responsibility and not indiscriminately commenting on other religions cultural beliefs. Exercising social responsibility is very important and this shows how mature one is, in his thinking. Newspaper may have the right to freedom of speech that does not mean that the journalist can write and comment on the other races. Just like what I said previously, it all boils down to the problem of if one can exercise social responsibility and know what should be said and printed and what should not be. There is a difference between having the right and it being socially and morally right to do it. Just like the press may have the right to comment on other races but if the press does so it may be against their moral values. Thus there is a need to know how to strike a balance between individual and collective press freedom rights. This can be done through the people exercising social responsibility and knowing how to limit ones comments and on the other hand the people at the receiving end of the comments must have a broad mind and accept that other people can comment on whatever they like. What’s important is that one has to believe in your own religion and that will be enough and not bothering about what people say.
What I think is the problem with Singaporeans is that many of us think that they have the right to comment on other people’s beliefs or cultural customs but does not allow other people to comment on the religion or god they belief in thus creating a huge problem. I have personally met people who are complete racist where they will joke about other people’s races insult their customs and even do name calling on those of a particular race and they seem to enjoy it so much and are completely oblivious that the ones who are at the receiving end of it is either feeling uncomfortable or unhappy. However when the ones at the receiving end of it decides to play along and insults the racist’s race, he would flare up and start shouting profanities and may even resort to violence!

In a multi racial country like Singapore one must learn how to respect one another’s religion and being sensitive to their beliefs thus the government should allow freedom of speech to a limited extent and also educate the public on social responsibility. This enables the country to be free from racial riots and racial unrest as such activities may cause the economy of that country to stop growing. Who would one to leave in a country that is full of social unrest and violence? For everyone’s benefit to live in a peaceful country everyone must play a part in maintaining peace by respecting one another’s religion and be sensitive to each other’s belief.

George Orwell

Question 1
The technique he used is to describe the whole situation very clearly the expressions and the tension in the atmosphere to emphasize on what he wants to point out that there is no point in meting out capital punishment. He also described the man as any other human being and has all his organs function why must he be sentenced to a capital punishment of death, causing the reader to sympathize the prisoner and may thus have a feeling that capital punishment should be condemned. He also ended the passage by having a situation where the people who did the hanging were not affected by it; in fact it is like an everyday thing to them, too common. Even when the dead person is hundred yards away the wardens were still drinking away, they were not afraid. The ending compared to the starting of the passage had a totally two different atmospheres and feeling very contrasting.

Question 2
For capital punishment:
-Capital punishment serves as a warning to make people think twice before they are going to commit a crime. Once they think twice that perhaps it is not worth committing this crime which will result in capital punishment being meted out they will not commit the crime. This results in the lesser number of serious crimes.

- Capital punishment serves as something to instil fear in people’s heart and cause them not to think about committing a heinous crime like trafficking drugs, committing murder, kidnapping people etc.

- Capital punishment ensures that the people who commit heinous crimes will receive the capital punishment that they deserve which is also a form of retribution. For example if you kill someone you will receive death penalty. It is something like paying off the blood debt with your life for a life that you took. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

“We are concerned here only with the imposition of capital punishment for the
crime of murder, and when a life has been taken deliberately by the offender, we
cannot say that the punishment is invariably disproportionate to the crime. It
is an extreme sanction suitable to the most extreme of crimes.”--Potter Stewart

-Capital punishments shows the amount of effort that the country is putting in to reduce the crime rates for serious offences with capital punishments for many serious offences deter people from committing them.

-Capital punishments ensure that the appropriate amount of justice is given to the family of the people who are victims of the serious crime. This makes the people of the country still believe that the country will do things to protect its citizens or people from harm. This is something like a consolation to the victim’s family that the offender has received his deserved retribution or sentence and the country is still a rather safe place to stay in and thus still have confidence and faith in the country’s security.

-Capital punishments makes people respect the country’ law to a certain extent if people commit very serious crime and mediocre crime but they still received punishment of not much a varying degree, they may not respect the law and decide to flout it.

-

“Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human
life.”--Orrin Hatch quotes

Against capital punishments:
-Capital punishments deprive people the basic human right of living. Everyone born to earth is equal and has the same rights. Who will be the one to judge that you should die or be sentenced to capital punishment? You are not god; you have no right to control over other peoples life and death.

-Capital punishment destroys the healthy living creature that is alive and kicking. Here you are destroying lives and on the other hand, in the hospitals people are desperately trying to save precious life. People want healthy organs but here you are destroying healthy organs when you kill a healthy person.

-Capital punishments deprive offenders the chance to regret and repay for what crimes they have committed and turning over a new leaf.

“Apologizes are pointless, regrets come too late. What matters is you can move,
on you can grow.”-- Kelsey Grammer quotes

What matters is you move on and grow from your mistake, but the capital punishment (death penalty) does not allow people to regret, move on and grow up. One grave mistake and you are dead. Crime could also be done at the moment of folly and that may be because he was so overwhelmed by anger that he lost his common sense. Why not give the person a chance to repay the crimes that they have committed? It is not fair.

-

“As long as you have capital punishment there is no guarantee that innocent
people won't be put to death.” --Paul Simon quotes

As quoted, capital punishment may result in innocent people death. Just like what Fiona said that once a person is found guilty, innocence is irrelevant. One cannot easily or have enough time to search for new clues or evidence to prove one’s innocence.


Question 3:

“I personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that
people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own
right to live. I believe that that death penalty should be used only very
rarely, but I believe that no-one should go out certain that no matter how
cruel, how vicious, how hideous their murder, they themselves will not suffer
the death penalty.”--Margaret Thatcher

In conclusion, I think that capital punishment should be meted out but to a small extent and for the more serious cases as only when a country is governed by law would then there be lesser crime rates. I agree with Ms Thatcher that if one is prepared to take other people’s life they must be prepared to forfeit their own life. Perhaps if one is going to be sentenced to death if he wants to repay people or want to show remorse or want to show regret, he may donate all his organs away for other people who need the organ to use. Lastly capital punishment should only be used as the last form of punishment available, as much as possible don’t use it and when you use it use it with extra caution that the person is definitely guilty and not prosecute the innocent.

ILLEGAL WI-FI ACCESS

With reference to the article "18-month Net ban, community service for PC game addict" published in The Straits Times newspaper on the 17th January 2007, i have a few comments on this topic.

I feel that this is extreme end of a game addict. When the parents find out that their child is a game addict, i think that other than just confiscating the Internet cable or locking the computer up would be enough. Parents should talk to the child on the matter and make him realise his problem. If one does not do so there may be a chance that the child feel that the parents just want to go against him or else the child may feel that "what's wrong with playing computer games every day?”. This will result in just another game addict like the one mentioned in the newspaper. The person may be so desperate and would go all our just to satisfy his addiction to computer games. This may cause the child to commit crimes unwittingly.

In conclusion, parents should try to reason with the child or perhaps come to a agreement on the issue where the child may get to play a certain amount of hours of the computer game and would slowly cut down to the appropriate number of hours. If the parent still cannot control the child maybe external help is needed for example seeking treatment for the child for the professionals

Self Intro

My name is kuan teck. I went to Pei Chun Public School. I did not have a permanant CCA then i was hopping from CCA to CCA from Chess Club to Tai Chi Club. In the end i i did bot like any any did not have a CCA. I enjoyed life there with my primary school friends. Andy, Di jie, Jing jing ren, cheng zhong, Yu zhe, aaron, eng loong and many more. I will never forget the fun we had during classes and during soccer games during recess time.

Then to Presbyterian High schoool. In secondary school my CCA was National Cadet Corp (SEA). The CCA taught me many things, including soft skills and hard skills. My whole platoon had many fun times together, enjoying kayaking sessions together. I still can remember the enjoyable times together during camps and torturous trainings. Another part of my life in secondary school life is with my classmates we played soccer together in classrooms, fields,void decks and many other places.

Then now i am in Anderson Junior College. In the first intake i was in S15/07. This class rocks man. The class is damn fun and is crappy. Jy, sokyin,vishal,terry,edwin,sinyi,candyand many more. I enjoy this class very much the times when me and vishal will crap with each other, it is unfogettable. Wow. Hope that after the second in take we still can be in the same class.