Do You Know Irony When You See It?

The headline read, "Irony Alert: Firing Squad May Be Today's Most Humane Way To Carry Out the Death Penalty." First, I double checked the meaning of irony: the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. I'm guessing this was the emphatic effect the author, Patrik Jonsson, was looking for. I leave it up to you to decide if the fact that Mister Jonsson writes for the Christian Science Monitor has any effect, ironic or otherwise. I failed to see the humor in this particular assertion, so maybe it turns out that I'm no better a judge of irony than Alanis Morrisette.

Where do all these good ideas, ironic or not, come from? Utah. That state's legislature has decided to bring back the firing squad as a means to avoid the "cruel and unusual punishment" that so many feel death by lethal injection has become. The crux of the argument is found in the discussion of "botched" executions over the past few years where condemned prisoners were not given enough or given too much of whatever lethal cocktail they were supposed to be injected with, and this caused undue suffering on the part of the eventually deceased. The argument, it seems, is that getting together a crew of crack shots to take aim at a convicted prisoner's heart is a lot more decisive and direct way to put a bad guy down. In the recent failed attempts, it was pointed out that it took almost two hours for a man to die, there is something wrong.

It was at this point that I began to realize that Patrik may have been jerking my chain. By merely bringing up the topic of how long it takes for a person to die from electric shock, lethal injection, or hanging, we are asking people to think about something unimaginable for most of us. Perhaps the cruelest and most unusual part of the punishment of death row is the time spent waiting there. But just like those of us who would rather not watch how the sausage gets made, there are those who would rather not have to consider how we do away with those whom our justice system has decided are not fit to live. If you're not the type to click on links and haven't read the whole article, I can tell you that near the end of his article, Mister Jonsson refers to an article in The Atlantic, which suggests that if we really want to show off just how tough we are on crime, we should be using a guillotine. Barbaric? Sure. Ironic? Probably.

It's so hard to tell sometimes.