Mencken
...orist who is logical in his argument because he tells both sides of the situation. In this particular essay, about the Death Penalty, which he refers to as "frying him or gassing him," which is a completely morbid way of describing the death penalty. He thinks that one reason the death penalty is used is to scare other "potential" criminals from committing those crimes because they are scared of being killed themselves which was his initial intention in the beginning. In the actual essay Mencken says "..the whole aim of punishing criminals is to deter other (potential) criminals -- that we hang or electrocute A simply in order to so alarm B that he will not kill C." Which is obviously not true because if the penal...