WHITHER the world today? In one country, a famous model was blown up to smithereens, and, in yet another one, American media players appear to have been slaughtered and dismembered, on foreign soil, but still under the full jurisdiction of the hosting country.

And the so-called president of the greatest country in the world speaks over the phone to the king of yet another, and they believe each other, but both may soon become proven liars! That one president is already labelled a “pathological liar” by one of his primary political opponents.

Locally, there is one so-called social media outlet which seeks to free the Malaysian nation from all its democratic abuses, but highlights another complete lie preached by the fallen prime minister of Malaysia; highlighting a statement which was another obvious lie.

Is the modern CSL culture, or a culture of cheating, stealing, and lying, a mainstream value for all new media? Do they check their facts before publishing? Or is that no more an important value for online publishing? Why am I asking this question?

Lying media outlets?

While I have also been a media player as a columnist for about 15 years, I cannot accept or understand how certain media outlets choose to highlight certain issues and play down yet others. If I did, I may have become an investigative research journalist and only write matters of truth.

But I suppose that too may now be more dangerous, if I am living in a certain country with a nebulous past. Oops, but that is the same one where a Mongolian lady was obliterated and two police constables were found guilty! Dare I?

That one police constable, a Special Forces individual, is to be released and allowed to fly out to Malaysia to seek justice for matters of truth. He is now under Australian custody, but they refused to allow him to return because they do not believe in the death penalty.

I therefore observed the full proceedings on the second day of Parliament via the RTM live telecast. What was especially encouraging, apart from the fact that there is now new civic order in the house, is the question of how the abolishment of the death penalty has become the focus.

If any state can decimate any human being, whether a citizen of the nation or not, it shamefully disregards all our institutions of post-world war governance if such a state can individually and selectively abuse any human being for private or national purposes.

The focus of all the global media spotlight is now on that one potential rogue state because of the “representative democrats, and their modus operandi”. Malaysia is slowly but surely losing her first love with this nation-state because of their brand of Islam too!

I am an opponent of the death penalty. My reason is simple and straightforward! Only God Almighty knows all truths, and any human endeavour to search and recover evidence is still a small but human and flawed effort; almost by definition. Therefore and thereby, I fully support the Pakatan Harapan government’s abolition of the death penalty.

Nonetheless, the president of the Malaysian Bar has said that the mere “mathematical logic of extending 30 years into thirty chronological years may be simplistic”.

His is a credible and dignity of human life-related argument; that every case is a different story and any conversion of mathematic numbers cannot be simple arithmetic! I remember once asking my PhD advisor: what is the correct sample size for a study on human dignity?

His answer stunned me, as I had just started my studies and had not thought through my reason and logic system. He replied: “In your case, every individual is a complete set by itself; there cannot be samples.” Every human has dignity and their value is not generalisable! – October 27, 2018.

* KJ John worked in public service for 32 years, retired, and started a civil group for which he is chairman of the board. He writes to inform and educate, arguing for integration with integrity in Malaysia. He believes such a transformation has to start with the mind before it sinks into the heart!

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.