With the rise of the Novel Coronavirus late in 2019 and now into 2020, each day citizens the world over are worried to know what their futures hold in regards to their health, well-being and financial security. As tensions rise over the inability of our elected officials to take care of their constituents, it seems a new hashtag has surfaced on the internet.
On social media, millions of people have begun using the hashtag #bringbacktheguillotine to express their discontent. Whereas many folks seem to be saying it is obvious this hashtag would be popular, some folks who have been paying attention to the unbiased approval ratings of Prime Ministers, Presidents and other global leaders are surprised.
The guillotine was largely popularized as a means of execution during the French Revolution, where a revolutionary Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was able to fight for the passage of a law that death sentences should be carried out by the means of a machine, as opposed to by firing squad or hanging. He saw this as a more humanitarian death, and whereas the precision of beheading someone with a sword was a skill that required development, the guillotine was a much more user-friendly form of killing your enemies. The French Revolution was an incendiary time in French history, where French citizens rallied to change French institutions of government, such as the feudal system and absolute monarchy. The guillotine was used to execute many notable rulers, including King Henry XVI and Marie Antoinette.
The guillotine was eventually outlawed in France in 1977. By absolutely no coincidence at all, Reaganomics, including the ideology of trickle-down economics, where wealth was given to the upper class of society and would in time “trickle down” to everyone else, came into fruition in the United States of America in the 1980s.
A notable trend in relation to this hashtag is a sharp, exponential increase in purchasing rates of lumber, rope and strong metals from stores like Home Depot, Lowes and Ace Hardware. Our field reporters were able to flag down one gentleman buying several long beams of wood who commented, “yeah, I’m building a motherfucking guillotine.”
A senator, who wished to remain anonymous, commented that he sees the guillotine as “barbaric” and said that “there is a certain lack of consideration for the value of human life in its method.” He added “what kind of person would stand idly by and watch a person suffer knowing that they could stop their pain?” When asked about evictions and job loss due to the recent COVID-19 outbreaks around the world, the senator opted not to comment.
There have been some concerns raised by the larger community in regards to the guillotine, most notably the push for social distancing in the wake of Coronavirus. The community is asking if a guillotine is an effective way to execute, for example, a tyrannical ruler, if it is highly discouraged for groups of ten or more people to congregate together. Social media has been on fire this week questioning what good is an efficient public beheading without an angry mob? Luckily, many video services have chimed in to the digital conversation, offering their video software services for free, assuring folks on social media they can observe the beheadings of negligent politicians, for example, from the comfort of their homes.
While opinions come to a head over the future of social movements in this time of fear and unrest, one thing is for certain; the world is watching, at least for their forty minute free trial on their favorite video chat service.
©2020 by Brice Maiurro