10月3日
今日はいつも通り授業に出て、プレゼンも無事に終えました。
質問来ないでって祈っていたにも関わらず、プレゼンターの中で一番質問をもらいました。質問をもらえるのはいいことで、リスナーがちゃんと話を聞いてくれているのと、僕の見解に興味を持ってくれていることの証です。質問が来て欲しくなかったのは、僕が英語をちゃんと聞き取って質問に適切に答えられるかが心配だったわけで、質問自体は全然ウェルカムです。
でも、受け答えをしていく中で思ったのは、「あれ？俺こんなに英語喋れたっけ？」っていう感覚。ひたすら自分の意見を主張することに集中できていました。教授にも「君のペーパーはクラスでベストなものの一つだよ」とコメントをいただき、ルンルンでした。
るんるんすぎて、いつもは撮らない風景の写真なども。秋晴れのキャンパスです。
明日もプレゼンがあるので、その準備をジョーとして、帰ってからはショートエッセイを書き終えました。
何かの意見に反対しようというものなんですが、僕は死刑存続にしました。これに反対するので、死刑廃止派ということになりますね。書いている過程で、死刑の過程などたくさん調べていたのですが、本当に悲しくなる刑罰だと思いました。日本で未だに存続しているのが信じられない。先進国で死刑制度を導入しているのは日本とアメリカの一部の州だけです。悲しいことにペンシルヴァニアは死刑賛成派です。日本はレミゼラブルやショーシャンクなどの映画から何も学ばないのだろうか。弁護士30人のうち20人以上が冤罪の可能性から死刑を反対しているのに、2014年の民意調査では80パーセント近くの人が賛成派。世論と実際の法廷にいる側の意見がこんなにもかけ離れているのは如何なものか。日本にこういう題材の映画があまりないのはやはり死刑を存続させているからなのかな。
ここからは僕の意見です。ちょうど宿題として提出したものをそのまま貼ります。ひまで読む気のある人は読んでみてください。結構自信あるので。笑
明日もプレゼン頑張るぞ！！！
ここからの英文は課題である
Select a topic you feel passionately about. For this assignment, as opposed to your essay, it's fine to choose a big, national issue: gun control, abortion laws, the drinking age, immigration reform, and so on. In a paragraph, offer your position on the issue and at least 3 good reasons in support of your position. Then, in another, paragraph, play devil's advocate. Offer rebuttals for each of the good reasons you mentioned in the first paragraph. In the final paragraph, offer 3 good reasons from the devil's advocate position. (So there should be 3 paragraphs total to this short response.)に答えた形式になっています。
I totally agree with the idea of abolishing the death penalty all around the world. There always is the possibility of false accusation. This is a big deal because no one can make up for the mistake because the convicts are already dead, and the method which makes it possible to detect false accusation perfectly does not exist so far. In addition, convicts might change their minds and contribute to Japanese society like the movie “Les Misérables” (1998). The movie “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994) also depicts how prisoners try to rehabilitate themselves with the scene of the library. There is no right to kill someone who tries to be a good person, and the second chance should be given to each person. Moreover, the article 36 of The Constitution of Japan states “The infliction of torture by any public officer and cruel punishments are absolutely forbidden.” I think the death penalty is extreme torture because we deprive someone of life. It is weird that people think cutting of an arm could be more torturous than taking one’s life.
On the other hand, as for the false accusation, the possibility could be less by judging extremely carefully. They can adjourn the case until they get enough proof. As long as the sentence is not a false accusation, the death penalty will work as a deterrent. Also, regarding prisoners’ rehabilitation, it is not realistic from the aspect of money. Spending huge sums of money for the prisoners that might or might not be rehabilitated is not a wise choice to make. Furthermore, according to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, torture means “the act of causing somebody severe pain in order to punish them or make them say or do something” (2010). Taking this into consideration, the way of committing death penalties does not fit to this definition. Since they use chemical medicines or toxic gases, the death penalty itself does not cause severe pain.
However, these counter-arguments are not always true. The idea of adjourning the case probably reduce the possibility of a false accusation, but it also costs money and takes much more time. The fact is that while the death penalty works as a deterrent, some people committed a crime because they wanted to be killed by the death penalty. When talking about rehabilitation, people have to know that convicts are also labor forces. There are lots of options to save money for their rehabilitation. For example, if convicts can raise crops, they only need fields. This is just an example but the way of saving money worth considering. The argument that the death penalty does not cause severe pain does not make sense when you know how these penalties have been failed. There are many cases that convicts died in terrible pain with shrieking and struggling because of the negligence of checking apparatus carefully. For those reasons above, I strongly insist that the death penalty should be abolished all over the world.