Why not box them to death?

Herbie Gomez

A MANILA-BASED businessman, who’s long been a friend of this paper, called up last week just to ask me what I thought about Sen. Manny Pacquiao and Co.’s proposal to restore capital punishment in the country.

My reply: Why not box convicts to death? Take a felon and tie him up to one corner of the boxing ring. Then make someone like Pacquiao throw punches on the convict’s face like crazy until he’s dead. No need to buy expensive punching bags and speed bags for our boxers. “Humanity” is a word that’s fast becoming meaningless in Congress and so, we might as well get really brutal in dealing with people in death row.

The late American stand-up comedian, noted public intellectual and social critic George Carlin never fails to make me laugh. I’m glad his shows have been preserved, and have been shared on Youtube. Carlin’s take on the death penalty pretty much sums up my, as he put it, “brain droppings” on the proposed return of capital punishment.

Read and laugh:

“We made them both up–sancity of life and the death penalty. Aren’t we versatile?

“… The death penalty doesn’t mean anything unless you use it on people who are afraid to die… like the bankers who launder the drug money. The bankers, who launder, the drug money. Forget the dealers, you wanna slow that drug traffic, you got to start executing a few of these f***ing bankers…

“I’m talking about f***ing crucifixion, folks! Let’s bring back crucifixion, the form of capital punishment that Christians and Jews… can really appreciate.

“And I’d go a little further. I’d crucify people upside-down… like St Peter, feet up, head down. And naked… I’d have naked upside-down crucifixions on TV, once a week at half-time on a Monday night football game. The ‘Monday Night Crucifixions.’ You’d have people tuning in… don’t even care about football…

“Now, I don’t care about capital punishment, one way or another, ’cause I know it doesn’t do anything… it doesn’t do anything except, maybe, to satisfy a kind of biblical need for revenge…

“… I think even in a fake democracy, people ought to get what they want once in a while. Just to feed this illusion that they’re really in charge. Let’s use capital punishment the same way we use sports and television in this country, to distract people and take their minds off how bad they’re being f***ed by the upper one percent…

“Not only do I recommend crucifixions, I’d be in favor of bringing back beheadings. Beheadings on TV, slow motion, instant replay? And maybe you can let the heads roll a little hill, and fall into one of five numbered holes. Let the people at home gamble on which hole the head is gonna fall. And you do it in the stadium so that the mob can gamble on it, too. Raise a little more money. And if you want to expand the violence a little longer to sell a few more commercials, instead of using an ax, you do the beheadings with a handsaw…

“Blood is already on our hands. All we’re talking about is a matter of degree.

“You want something a little more delicate? Well, do the beheadings with an olive fork. That’ll be nice…

“There’s a lot of good things we could be doing.

“When’s the last time we burned someone at the stake? It’s been too long! Here’s another form of capital punishment (that) comes out of a nice, rich religious tradition. Burning people at the stake… And you put it on TV on Sunday mornings…

“What about boiling people in oil? Boy, those were the days weren’t they? You get the oil going real good. You know, a nice high rolling boil. And then slowly at the end of the rope, you lower the perpetrator head first into the boiling oil… And just to encourage citizen participation, you let the mob in the stadium control the speed of the rope. Good, clean, wholesome family entertainment… The kids’ll love it. And at the same time they’re enjoying themselves, we’re teaching them a nice Christian moral lesson. Boiling people in oil…

“And maybe, maybe instead of boiling all these guys every now and then, you could french-fry a couple of them, you know. French-fried felons. Dip a guy in egg batter, just for a goof, you know? Kind of a tempura thing, huh?”

I swear my stomach ached, laughing. Pastilan.