Below are some Paul Waldman’s thoughts about using the
guillotine to impose the death penalty.
…But
back to our execution methods. It does seem that as the killing techniques have
evolved, what we've called more "humane" methods are not about
minimizing the suffering of the condemned, but about minimizing the
gruesomeness of the spectacle, so that we can perform the execution without
feeling like barbarians.
So
if you recoil from the idea of the guillotine, ask yourself why. It's fast,
foolproof, and essentially painless. If you were going to be executed, wouldn't
it be near the top of your list for ways to go?... The visceral objection you
have to that thought is not about the suffering of the one being executed, it's
about how you'd feel watching it. The guillotine, with its blood and severed
head, would make us feel uncomfortable about what we're doing when the state
executes someone in our name. It would make us feel barbaric. As well it
should.
The rest of the article is here.
No comments:
Post a Comment