flwyd: (Shakespeare bust oval)
Dismember, dismember / The fifth of November
Several months ago, this phrase came to me, hoping that Guy Fawkes was drawn & quartered. It turns out, the punishment was even more cruel and unusual than that.
Private collection, illustration of the Hanging, drawing and quartering of Guy Fawkes. This print shows what happened to the Gunpowder Plotters of 1605. The punishment for treason was gruesome: the offender was dragged on hurdles through the streets to the execution-place, hanged, but taken down while still alive, castrated, disembowelled and cut into quarters.

I've always thought the activist proclivity to wearing V for Vendetta masks seemed like a poor choice of association. Is this the conclusion you want from an #occupy event? Not to mention, as someone pointed out today, that Guy Fawkes was trying to blow up a symbol of representative democracy in favor of a 9-year-old religiously-aligned monarch.

(Expanded from a Google+ post I made in June.)
flwyd: (santa fe church ironwork and cross)
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the pro-life Catholic Church spends a lot more energy opposing abortion than opposing the death penalty. In every place of worship, and around many believers necks, sits a sculpture of an ancient device for killing a prisoner in public.



(I've heard that Catholic organizations have started taking stands against the death penalty, war, and other politically-charged death situations. I applaud this direction and hope the world's largest organization takes a more public and active role in these campaigns.)
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