Wide context

Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

/^t/Capital punishment should not have place in a civilized society. It is a morally and spiritually impoverished community which can despatch its misfits into oblivion. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that an execution deprives the people involved in carrying it out and those watching it of the utter degradation of a fellow human being; their innocence is lost forever. As George Orwell wrote in "The Road to Wigan Pier": "I watched a man hanged once; it seemed to be worse than a thousand murders." Human beings ought to see themselves as being bound together in a community of the mind and universal brotherhood. The execution of a member of the human race is a denial of that bond. We ought to be able to say with John Donne: "And man's death diminishes me because I'm involved in mankind."