Mike Cartel 1994
Although I sent over 35,000 enemies of the People to Madam Guillotine, I feel ambivalent about the death penalty. I would have eliminated all the reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries in France had the Directory not girlie-cringed at my last speech where they felt the kiss of the blade too close to their own cowardly necks.
No, I feel that the punishment should fit the crime and if a criminal has committed treason (as determined by a duly appointed tribunal by the Committee of Public Safety) then Citizen he/she should suffer humiliation and pain before expiration.
The ancients understood the utility of an agonizing example. Crucifying was a rather tame execution by Roman standards, and beheading is downright humane when you figure that the victim lives for only 10 seconds (at the most) after decapitation.
Even in my time the practice of ‘hung, drawn and quartered’ approached a cruel, unusual, judicious and satisfying death. But I believe my favorite execution remains the method popular a couple hundred years ago in India. The condemned was tied by chain to the back leg of an elephant and bounced through the street at the animal’s trot. At the end of the street the (pain-level 10) damned on the chain was now tied face-up while the elephant was directed to step on the poor wretch’s face with its full weight. About as messy as the guillotine and a lot more time consuming, but boy, what an example. And what a show!
I have heard talk from some death penalty opponents that executions should be televised. It would, they believe, repulse everyone into demanding the end of capital punishment. But let me tell you, if you could’ve seen the orgiastic excitement from the screaming Parisian commoners as I walked up the 13 guillotine steps, then you would know that TV executions would fast become the very highest rated shows. And, the public would soon demand more adventurous and entertaining methods of death as well.
Maximilien Robespierre (the incorruptible) was a lawyer who later served as the Director of Public Safety who ran the ‘Reign of Terror’ during the difficult mandate of the 1793 French Revolution. He is also the father of the political and cultural Left.
If you have questions regarding politics, philosophy, sociology or discipline, then write to Dear Max c/o The Valley Vantage.
©Michael Cartel 1994
Story borrowed from my Valley Vantage newspaper in 1994 in celebration of the 202nd anniversary of the French First Republic.