In the spirit of multiculturalism…

I have seen some rather bigotted commentary coming from the Left in the last couple of days concerning the upcoming execution of that barbarous, tyrannical murderer, Saddam Hussein, but the comments that most clearly indicate the Left’s slide into hypocrisy is the cry that capital punishment is barbarian.

Well, of course it is, but why is the Left suddenly turning on barbarians? Where are the much-vaunted multi-cultural values the Left so loudly espouses when it suits it? It is the highest of multi-cultural respect to treat a barbarian such as Saddam according to his own values, as nearly as we can.

Off with his head; that is, may the rope be applied humanely, not in slow strangulation but in sudden decapitation. Sorry I can’t go with Saddam’s barbarous values far enough to advocate slow strangulation. Call me biased toward Western humanitarian values, if you will, but I am trying to respect Saddam’s values, here, as well as I can.

BTW, it is in these sorts of things that multi-culturalism does have some positive use. When dealing with savages, it is at time useful to deal savagely with them, out of respect for their own values *cough* and in order to communicate with them in ways they–and other savages–can understand clearly. Such application of multi-culti values would serve the West well in its dealing with Islamic savages, for example. I refer you once again to The Grave of the Hundred Head for further instruction:

There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.

They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face –
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race –
They made a samadh in his honor,
A mark for his resting-place.

For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state,
With fifty file of Burmans
To open him Heaven’s gate.

The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay –
A jingal covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.

The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar’s flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.

Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,

Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village –
The village of Pabengmay,
And the “drip-drip-drip” from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.

They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man’s chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below –
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris –
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a white man’s head
Must be paid for with heads five-score.

There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

Trackposted to Rightwing Guy, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Bullwinkle Blog, The HILL Chronicles, and The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.