Tuesday, February 17, 2009

You are going to die! Part XII

People are not only very stupid and easy to fool; they are also very inventive and have no problem learning the art forms of torture and executions. Few hobbies have taking more time in the human history than how to come up with new and more creative ways to kill other humans.

We can skip some of the most common ones like beheading and hanging. Not very inventive. Firing squads and bullets in the back of the head (popular socialist solution) we can also ignore and jump ahead to the more interesting ones. One of my favorites is the Iron Maiden. Not only a great rock band, but also a pleasant piece of equipment. A person is put in a metal box shaped like a human with two joining pieces, like any kind of box. He/she then gets strapped down on one side and can watch the lid close with lots of pointy spikes on the inside of the opposite part (lid). The number of spikes, how effective they are and so on determines how much pain and how long the subject survives. You can almost hear them making bets on how long you will survive, cant you? Another one of my favorites are when they attached each limb of a person to a bunch of horses and then let them pull in opposite direction, pulling that person into pieces. If the audience were a bit lucky the amputee didn’t pass out from the pain and instead screamed a bit before losing to much blood.

And of course you cannot talk about torture and executions without mentioning the church (any of them). How the Catholic Church handled witches for instance. The “witches” had mainly 3 ways to go. Being burned alive, kind of a crowd pleaser, but not really that inventive. And then you had the drowning test. If the woman (pretty much always a woman) in question sinks, she is innocent of witchcraft and will go straight to heaven, if she floats; she is a witch and instead got to be burned alive. A win win situation for all parties. And then, probably top three in my book, the suctions device. With this you put a tube down the woman’s throat and poured in lots of water, letting the suction do all the work. When she reaches a certain point, her belly will explode and killing her in agony. That if she hasn’t “drown” or died in lack of oxygen. Fun fun fun.

And we really need to mention those ever so effective Germans. Too hard to shot people and dig holes? Let’s start factories were we gas them and then burn them. Easy, effective and maybe even pretty humane (in regard to other solutions), but also inventive. And you could also use those human bodies as a way of heating, maybe even reduce global warming! I’m not sure if this last part ever happened or is viable scientifically speaking, but it is a good idea to pick up for all those dictator wannabees out there.

I could go on for a long time, but let’s skip to my absolute favorite and what has to be number one; starvation. And I’m not talking about that easy one; not eating in a dungeon or rotting away at some prison. No I’m talking about the one where you get to watch all your relatives and your children die all around you while you yourself are dying of hunger. This is my favorite way of killing people, not because it’s one of the main killers of humans of all time and not even for the psychological effect of seeing your loved ones die painfully, no, it’s because it has been a way for countless governments to get rid of pesky inhabitants. Since the dawn of agriculture we (those with brains) have known that we have enough food to support ourselves, all of us. But instead we let ourselves get ruled and taxed by different forms of governments and all they do is eat, live and build things with the money they take from the people. This might lead to some starving but is not really the main issue, because you also have wars and other fun things the rulers use as their pastime, and that increases the risk of starving by a lot. But that’s not really enough either. You can, however, as ruler, always deport people were there is no food or outlaw them from growing their own crops and here is where the real fun starts. In China, for example, this has been used throughout history, killing millions upon millions, but of course worse of all are those socialists. During a couple of decades (50’s and 60’s) in China tens of billions of people died from starvation, courtesy of: the government! Russia (or the former USSR) is another place where this way of killing was used several times. If farmers didn’t want to give 100% of their earnings to the state, they got deported to Siberia and didn’t eat at all.

Granted, starvation in its self isn’t really inventive, but you can work around it, creating lines stretching out for miles with people wanting to buy a piece of bread. Or you can send your soldiers out to rob people of their last cows, which is always enjoyable. So starvation is number one because of these reasons and this last topping of the cake: It still kills millions of people today! And you haft to admit that a night in front of the TV without those flies buzzing around the starving and dying isn’t really a good night. I mean munching on some chips and drinking beer kind of needs that. All this when those people actually could be eating. I mean, come on, does it get funnier?

No comments:

Post a Comment