Author Topic: Off with their heads! A tribute to the Queen of Hearts  (Read 2369 times)

Offline jester

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Off with their heads! A tribute to the Queen of Hearts
« on: December 13, 2004, 11:26:15 AM »
This idea originated here: http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php?topic=17502.msg236851#msg236851

Did you miss the political discussion thread? ( I did not think so :P)

Here is a new treat for you to ponder. Good intentions that went awry. Is it good to make killing someone easier for society instead of moving on into the next step of civilisation?


From someplace else that cought my attention and did not belong there anyway:
Quote
from neriana's second source: http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2275.html

..It is less repugnant: no man's hands will be tainted with the blood of his fellow being, I see your point, but if that is true is up to debate.
a head cut off by a swift slash of axe or guillotine knows that it is a beheaded head whilst it rolls along the ground or into the basket – consciousness survives long enough for such a perception.

(See the intentions above) ::) I wonder, if Tazok watched me loot his  corpse for the second time round.



interesting links:
The electric chair and the guillotine...
...and both were surrounded by ulterior motives that backfired.
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa103197.htm

unrelated but hey.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/offwiththeirheads.htm
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

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Offline Eral

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Re: Off with their heads! A tribute to the Queen of Hearts
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2004, 04:48:48 PM »
We make methods of execution more "efficient" and "humane" so that we can continue to use them, giving ourselves distance from the distasteful. We make them private to keep them unnoticed. We assign the job to someone anonymous. This way we can keep on congratulating ourselves on our civilised behaviour, and not be confronted by its ugliness.

If executions were public and messy and painful, and the executioner was openly known, we would have to say, "Is this the society I want?" We would have to look at what we are doing. And then we would have to make a choice about calling ourselves "civilised" or actually being civilised.

What made France stop guillotining people after 1977?  In Australia it was no more hangings after 1969. I have a vague idea that the irreversibility of the procedure contributed to the end of capital punishment here.
If you see anything mysterious or unusual, just enjoy it while you can.  - Michael Leunig.

Offline neriana

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Re: Off with their heads! A tribute to the Queen of Hearts
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2004, 06:37:05 PM »
The death penalty is wrong, being irreversible. However, I'm not going to apply that to the past by saying the inventors of the guillotine or electric chair were wrong. Everyone's at least partially a product of their times. If we hadn't had those methods, would execution now be outlawed in nearly every civilized country? Impossible to say. In any case, even 30 seconds more of consciousness, though gruesome, is less painful than being flayed alive, thrown into boiling oil, drawn and quartered, burned alive, or, if you were very lucky, choked to death or beheaded incompetently with multiple strokes of a sword.

Would as many people have died during the French Revolution without the guillotine? I happen to think so. They probably would have been burned at the stake. The "enemies of the Republic" were so dehumanized by society, anything that was done to them was considered perfectly fine and wonderful entertainment. People were used to seeing horrific executions for traitors anyway. I'm sure they considered themselves civilized for simply beheading people; and, in a way, they were.
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Offline Eral

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Re: Off with their heads! A tribute to the Queen of Hearts
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2004, 09:25:08 PM »
Would as many people have died during the French Revolution without the guillotine?

No, simple logistics would have slowed it down. Not enough wood or oil,  and torture takes a lot longer to kill someone. Precisely because it was so simple and quick, so many were killed.

I maintain that it is not good to make killing someone easier, and those people who made executions more efficient did so not to spare the suffering of the convicted, but to allow us to look away from our actions and to make it easier for us to continue. Let people be confronted by the consequences of their choice to have executions. Let's not be hypocrites. If the leaders in those places where they still have capital punishment had to cut the throats of the convicted themselves, maybe there wouldn't be any executions.
If you see anything mysterious or unusual, just enjoy it while you can.  - Michael Leunig.

Offline neriana

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Re: Off with their heads! A tribute to the Queen of Hearts
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2004, 09:55:22 PM »
Would as many people have died during the French Revolution without the guillotine?

No, simple logistics would have slowed it down. Not enough wood or oil,  and torture takes a lot longer to kill someone. Precisely because it was so simple and quick, so many were killed.

Sorry, you can't possibly know that for a fact. There was plenty of wood, plenty of rope, plenty of dungeons to starve people in. There are a lot of ways to kill masses of people. I'm not going to say yes, it definitely would have happened (that's why I said "I think"), but by the same token there is no way to say it definitely would not have happened.

I also have this strange compulsion to believe what people said about their own motivations when there is no evidence to the contrary. Pretending to know what people in the 18th century "really" thought, and that you know their own minds better than they did, is a losing proposition. I am going to link to a description of a thoroughly typical execution without the guillotine. Don't read it if you have a weak stomach.  http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hdq.html

Also, remember that throughout most of history, leaders have ridden to war. They didn't have any problems with killing people with their own two hands.
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Offline Eral

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Re: Off with their heads! A tribute to the Queen of Hearts
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2004, 10:14:07 PM »
It took 7 seconds to kill someone with the guillotine. They were able to get through a lot of people in a day because of that. I believe that is an historical fact.
I am not pretending to know what people in the 18th century thought. I am saying that machines that kill people more efficiently enable us to kill more people, more easily.

Today our leaders don't go to war. If they had to, we probably wouldn't. If the governor of Texas had to kill the condemned himself, I doubt that Texas would have a death penalty.
If you see anything mysterious or unusual, just enjoy it while you can.  - Michael Leunig.