How is beheading people worse than forms of capital punishment used in the US?

[raccoon]

In the US, we generally think beheading is barbaric. But how's it any worse than lethal injection or the electric chair?

I am not advocating beheading anyone. I'm against capital punishment. But the US/Americans can't claim the moral high ground on this one.

[MedleyMisty]

1. Because it's not sanitized and hidden where we don't have to actually confront it

Americans like their violence and death safe and comfortable and far away where they don't have to think about it or deal with it. Plus, anything we do is perfectly okay but other people are just godless heathens.

[dorkulon]

2. I think it's more about what they're beheading people for. /nt

[Bitwit1234]

20. The woman beheaded in Saudi Arabia killed an elderly woman.

[dorkulon]

24. Didn't know that's what we were talking about,

there's nothing in th OP about it. The fact is people are killed in some Muslim countries for drug offenses and consensual adultery. That I find to be insane. The method of killing is not an issue to me.

[karlrschneider]

3. I'd pick it over the chair if I had to choose. Not sure about the drug thing.

:shrug:

[Dr. Strange]

4. Ironically, depending on how it's done, it can be one of the most "humane" forms of execution.

Guillotine: quick death, less painful than hanging or shooting
Sawing the head off with a rusty sword: not so quick, quite annoying actually

[originalpckelly]

6. "Quite annoying actually"?

You mean it's a pain in the neck?

[Dr. Strange]

15. I thought puns were only allowed on Friday.

ROTFLMHO!

[originalpckelly]

5. Well, I think the electric chair is just as bad, but "lethal injection" is painless if done right.

If we used the same combo of drugs that are used to euthanize animals, it would be far more humane. However, of course, the particular drug cocktail in use now is possibly painful.

[EOTE]

29. Are you sure about that?

I saw an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit that claimed otherwise. Like most other DUers, I find P&T to be very inconsistent, but the show on the Death Penalty I thought was really well done. They had doctors on that suggested that once the tranquilizer took effect, you were still conscious and could feel pain, you just couldn't move or express emotion. So when your lungs stop working, you can feel your body starve for air and suffocate, but not do anything about it. So, it appeared by that as lethal injection was created more for the peace and calm of observers who wouldn't have to watch the man writhe in agony, rather than for the benefit of the person being killed.

[Atman]

7. It's icky! We like that in splatter films, not in real life. Er, death.

The whole way the state murders people in the United States is horrible, too...we lay them on a padded table in a nice, clean brightly lit room and try to make it all look so sanitary and nice and "Oh, he's just going to sleep."

The death penalty is bizarre. If me and 11 other people met in a closed room for a few hours and decided some guy should be killed because we didn't like what he did it'd be called "pre-meditated murder" and perhaps "conspiracy to commit murder." It's no different when The State does it.

.

[alphafemale]

8. If it were a quick clean slice it would probably not be THAT bad...

But...from video that I didn't avoid the head is generally sawed off with a dull blade while the person screams for quite awhile.

[Arkansas Granny]

9. In the US we seem to prefer our executions to be carried out in

a more impersonal and bloodless manner. However, dead is dead, as far as that goes.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. it's so, well, FRENCH.

as though that Doc Guillotine were involved.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. It's all that icky blood.

Executions should be pain free and conscience free. And above all, bloodless.

[onenote]

12. without advocating the death penalty, let me ask the following

If you had a pet and it had to be euthanized, would you choose beheading it over lethal injection?

[raccoon]

17. Yes. BTDT. nt

[Warren Stupidity]

21. My cat refused to die from her 'lethal' inection.

It was a horror show I will never forget. The same botched mess has happened to several human beings getting killed by the state, which is why it managed to get itself in front of the supreme court. We like to think it is nice and sanitary and gentle, and it is anything but that. At least my cat had no clue what horror we were going to foist on her.

[TahitiNut]

13. Uhmmmm... maybe because it's a form of ENTERTAINMENT?

Whether it's the crowds at a hanging looking to see the bodies twitch in the final death throes or at a beheading to watch the blood spurt and the eyes blink on the severed head, the "blood lust" of the Good People of the Kingdom is well-chronicled.

As most combat veterans might tell you, it's a lust that's quickly sated when immersed in the insanity of war - where, at least, the 'condemend' is a matter of Death Roulette.

[The Stranger]

14. Wait -- "the eyes blink on the severed head"?

Seriously?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. There's a famous story from the French Revolution

The chemist Antoine Lavoisier was sentenced to the guillotine, and he had heard rumors that heads continued to live for a while after being chopped off, so he told a friend that he would keep blinking until he lost consciousness. I forget how long he blinked,--something like 15 or 20 seconds.

It takes a while to lose consciousness after the blood supply to the brain is cut off.

[TahitiNut]

47. It makes me feel good when someone else remembers something I heard ...

... and can only vaguely remember. Thank you! :hi:

I kept thinking "Tale Of Two Cities" but that couldn't have been it. :shrug:

(Memory is the second thing to go. I can't remember what the first was.) :dunce:

[AlinPA]

16. There's something about the head rolling around and the neck with nothing hooked to it ....

[eShirl]

18. I've never understood why they don't just administer a lethal dose of morphine

if the goal is death without pain

[EOTE]

30. That would be far too simple and humane.

I've often wondered the exact same thing. I guess we don't want to condone any illegal drug use?

[harun]

35. I would prefer carbon monoxide, if the goal was simply

death without pain.

[EOTE]

42. I'd prefer to go out with a nice mellow buzz.

I mean, if you allow a prisoner to choose their last meal, they should also get an opiate to go out with. Kind of like the soylent green incentive.

[harun]

45. They do get to go out with at least vallium I think, not sure how

much more they would get but one would think whatever they want. It would help with the anxiety.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. It isn't. In fact as it makes the barbarism and brutality self evident

it is at least a more honest act of state terror. There is no pretending with a beheading.

[ThePowerofWill]

22. I think the chair is worse, and causes more suffering.

Not sure about lethal injection, or gas chamber. However i do understand they can be potentially very painful.

Let us also not forget beheading was used primarily against nobles. It was viewed as a more merciful, and honorable killing than hanging.

[NoPasaran]

26. And the practice was that nobles were beheaded with a sword

Commoners got the ax, not as sharp, sometimes requiring several blows.

The guillotine embodied the egalitarian spirit of the French Revolution by providing one form of execution for all.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. The machinery used is "cutting edge" but not high-tech.

[anamandujano]

27. because of the forethought of what is to happen

I doubt most people are afraid of death but mostly the act of dying, the consciousness of passing over. In this case the method is known, and there's plenty of time before to think about it. I'm not advocating any of the others.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

32. I'm not convinced a person would fear it more than electrocution.

Actually, I'd rather have my head cut off and know it was going to be over quick than to know someone was going to fry me until I was dead.

Then there's the possibility of suffering excruciating pain via the lethal injection. I'd rather have my head cut off than go through that too.

I'm willing to bet the real reason is it's a more emotional for those who support executions as a form of legal punishment.

But that's just me.

[anamandujano]

46. see posts #20 & #24

For the most part, when we hear of beheadings, it's usually a hostage situation or for something extremely innocuous or unfair.

That's what causes most of the angst.

[AlCzervik]

28. because of the blood.

i'm not saying we are any better but it's the whole gore factor, lethal injection is awful but you don't see any blood.

[Xenotime]

31. People in the US just have a large thirst for blood.

[SammyWinstonJack]

33. Do not include me in your assumption.

[marshall]

34. If it's one quick lop and instant death then it's no different

Beheading drew public disdain when it took two or three or more lops of the axe to get the head off the body. Mary Queen of Scots was supposedly writhing around like a fish in the sun while the executioner tried and tried again to remove her head from her body.

[WinkyDink]

36. Because, while dead is dead, beheading is offensive to the sanctity of the body entire.

It is horrifying in contemplation, moreso than being "put to sleep" (as we do with beloved pets, after all).

[windbreeze]

37. Even more important a question might be....WHY is this question being asked??

and WHY now??? I ask because I have been reading some things about guillotines already being present in the US...and the whole thing makes me very uneasy....imo, there is NO best case, or better than, scenario where such a thing is being considered...wb

[raccoon]

38. Why? Because it p's me off that some Americans act like other countries beheading

criminals is a terrible, barbaric thing, but it's OK for the US to use the electric chair or lethal injection. It's the height of hypocrisy. Of course, there's a lot of that going around these days.

[windbreeze]

41. ok...thanx for explaining why you asked..n/t

[spanone]

39. it's probably more humane, if killing can be humane.

[justanaveragedude]

40. Because if not done properly

You could end up as a ghost who can't join the headless hunt. Just ask Nearly Headless Nick.

I can't believe this thread went this long without a Nearly Headless Nick reference. C'mon!!!

[11 Bravo]

43. It's an aesthetic thing.

The sight, or even the thought, of a headless corpse is viscerally disturbing to most people, while in fact a properly conducted beheading is possibly the most humane method of ending a life. That was one rationale for the introduction of the guillotine.

[Disturbed]

44. Busholini called the beheadings in Iraq barbaric yet has

never mentioned a word about this in regard to his "friends", the Saudis, that do this
on a regular basis.

[DemGa]

48. It's the same thing of course

just a different technology.