Lingchi

Tags

Australian poet, Death by one thousand cuts, Execution, Lingchi, Methods of execution, poem, poetry, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet

𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐜𝐡𝐢

Teach what we know as right to now be wrong.
Remove the rights of those who are unborn.
Replace with the weak-willed, the good and strong,
And all that’s sacred vilify and scorn.
(Make sure to silence those who seek to warn.)
Corrupt the clergy and brainwash the young.
(The very young must have access to porn.)
Rule that the grand all songs must not be sung.
Encourage tribes — discard the common tongue.
Discourage all productive industry —
Make ladders it must climb — break every rung.
Damn enterprise — ensure that it’s not free.

The blood flows freely, and the nation tires;
But keep on cutting until it expires.

“Lingchi” or Death by a Thousand Cuts was not banned in China until 1905. It was of course an Asian invention and was also practised by the Vietnamese. It was a method of execution designed to inflict maximum pain and suffering before eventual death. There were variations, but the practice basically involved tying the victim to a wooden frame and inflicting a cut followed by another cut a short time later and then another and another and so on until the victim died.
While each cut was no doubt painful and serious it was by no means fatal, and it was only the incremental summation of pain and bleeding of a multitude of cuts that eventually weakened and then killed the victim.

This torture/execution is analogous to what is happening to western nations. Almost on a daily basis we hear of some new law, rule, tax, levy, regulation, woke social imperative, supposedly justifiable discriminatory action based on race or sex, support for abortion of the innocent unborn, ridiculous workplace health and safety requirement, environmental restriction, mad school curriculum, rewriting or erasure of history that doesn’t fit the narrative, attack on the legitimacy of the nation — the list goes on and on. Each one of these is an insidious cut and each one has a cost, social or cash, immediate or delayed; but the cost of each cut by itself goes largely unnoticed. These costs inexorably build however and gradually erode and undermine the nation’s structure — gradually sap its strength, divide its people, and weaken its character. Wealth dwindles and health (mental and physical) deteriorates. The end is always the same — If not taken down from the gallows and seen to before terminal damage is inflicted — the victim dies.

— D.N. O’Brien