Seeking Grace
The Iron Law of History
Until Queen Victoria’s reign, the formula held. The soil was sovereign and decreed how many could eat. In good years, humans ate enough and fucked. In bad years, they ate bark and died. People built cathedrals, wrote sonnets, and fought wars over whose genes would mix with whose. These were local vibrations; only the limit really mattered.
Take your enemy’s fields, his wife, his livestock — breed like a Bronze Age conqueror, and the limit would come for your grandchildren. Sail a thousand miles into oblivion, luck upon a virgin island, devour the poor creatures too stupid to fear you, and the limit would come for your great-grandchildren.
The soil had no mercy. Until Victoria was regina et imperatrix, Malthus reigned.
Clever apes could cheat a little. Craft projectiles, and the limit lurched upward. Master fire, irrigation, the plow — and hunger would fade for a generation or two. But the limit was still there, sharpening her blade — waiting for a cold winter, a failed harvest, or a nasty fungus to reap her deadliest harvest yet.
Then came the Victorians, with their iron, coal, and Book of Common Prayer. They didn’t smash the limit — not at first, but wore it down with sermons, steamships, and sixteen-hour workdays. They killed the limit before they killed God — and they needed God's help to do it.
The Victorians optimized the steam engine and fucking. They shamed women into chastity until twenty-six or twenty-eight. Shamed men into respecting twenty-four-year-old virgins rather than taking them in the fields. Shamed people into rationing sex like bread.
By the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, never had so many humans eaten so well, lived so long, and kept so many natural teeth. The jaws of the Malthusian trap were slack. Unless you were Irish, or Indian, or didn’t get the memo on prudential restraint.
Phil had a dead ferret in the trash and a primary on the calendar. He needed to change the narrative. What would he say when asked about the ferret? Some reporter was sure to ask as soon as he left the Hyatt. He felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn’t done anything that should cost him his pride or his seat, but the sound of the skull cracking stuck with him in a way he couldn’t explain, a small truth pressing against his sternum. It would have been better to chop its head off with a guillotine. But that didn't seem completely clean. The eyes and brain might keep working for a few seconds as the head rolled into eternity. Then, it struck him. He could explain the ferret, show he was tough on crime and, just maybe, make Texas safer. But first, an experiment. He put the ferret on the bare floor by the door, and dropped a 25-pound barbell on its lifeless head. Its cranium exploded instantly. Phil pulled out his laptop, and fired up ChatGPT. His prompt now hangs above the Doric columns of the Texas Whole Head Guillotine Court:
"Draft a Texas law that will execute murderers by crushing their heads. Let's own the libs."
The black circle pulsed for nineteen seconds. Then the law began to trickle out.
SB 247: The Texas Whole Head Guillotine Act
§ 1. Title This Act shall be known as the Texas Whole Head Guillotine Act of 2026.
§ 2. Capital Offenses Only the following offenses shall be punishable by execution under this Act:
Malice Murder, defined as intentionally causing the death of a human being.
Treason against the State of Texas, as defined by Article I, Section 22 of the Texas Constitution.
§ 3. The Texas Whole Head Guillotine Court There is hereby established the Texas Whole Head Guillotine Court, an appellate tribunal of limited jurisdiction empowered to hear a single appeal from sentences imposed under this Act. The Court shall consist of three members: (1) a district champion high school football coach, (2) a licensed veterinarian, and (3) a bonded exterminator with five or more years of experience. The Governor may appoint up to two additional justices from among those who have demonstrated valor and precision at the Texas Rattlesnake Roundup. All justices shall serve at the pleasure of the Governor. The Court shall issue a final ruling within five (5) days of conviction. Reversal is permitted only upon a showing of substantial likelihood that the defendant committed no capital offense. All other errors shall be deemed harmless.
§ 4. Execution Procedure Execution shall be carried out by placing the condemned in a prone position with the head restrained against a solidly constructed surface, and dropping a steel weight of no fewer than ten (10) tons from a height of no less than sixteen (16) feet directly onto the head. The design and maintenance standards for the apparatus shall be subject to the approval of the Texas Whole Head Guillotine Court. The governor shall appoint the executioner.
§ 5. Trial Timeline and Verdicts Trial shall commence within seven (7) days of indictment. Continuances may only be granted upon a showing of medical incapacity or active armed conflict in the county of venue. A majority verdict shall suffice for conviction. Indigent defendants shall receive representation under the Texas Fair Defense Act or its successor statute.
§ 6. Defense Counsel Custody During Continuance If a continuance is granted, defense counsel shall be held in general population at the jail of the county of venue for the duration of the delay. Counsel may retain and use a cell phone, laptop computer, and portable Wi-Fi hub while in custody, subject to standard security checks.
§ 7. Timing of Execution Execution shall occur within forty-eight (48) hours of the affirmation of sentence by the Texas Whole Head Guillotine Court. No stay shall be issued by any executive or judicial authority of the State of Texas.
§ 8. Emergency Execution Authority If, after conviction, a riot, rescue attempt, or comparable disruption occurs at the facility housing the condemned, any supervisory officer of the Texas Department of Correctiond may carry out summary execution by any available means not involving deliberate and unnecessary torture. No advance approval is required. No civil or criminal liability shall attach.
Senator Phil Mason filed the Texas Whole Head Guillotine Act at 10:45 that morning.
Axe Falls on Capitol: Guillotine Bill Sparks Firestorm in Texas Senate By Leslie Braddock, Austin Bureau Chief Published: March 3, 2026 — Austin Chronicle
The Texas Whole Head Guillotine Act, filed Wednesday morning by Sen. Phil Mason (R–Odessa), has upended the legislative session, triggering immediate backlash from Democrats and even suburban members of Mason’s own party.
The bill, which authorizes executions by dropping a massive steel weight onto a restrained head, was met with laughter, applause and hissing during its initial reading.
“Texans are tired of bureaucratic mercy,” Mason said at a press conference Thursday. “This is clean, swift, and dignified. And I say to the critics: find me a kinder way to crush a skull.” A high school football team, on a trip to the capitol to celebrate their regional championship, carried Mason on their shoulders from the press room to his legislative desk. The sergeant-at-arms stopped them from wheeling a water cooler onto the Senate floor. As Mason sat at his desk, mulling his new celebrity, Democrats booed, rural Republicans gave him a standing ovation, and four Republican women representing suburban Houston and Dallas districts looked nervously at their phones.
Rural Republicans have lined up behind the proposal. Sen. Lyle DeWitt (R–Childress), who chairs the Criminal Justice Subcommittee, praised the bill as “a return to moral clarity.” He continued, “Texas needs to protect her mothers, her daughters, her livestock inspectors, and her FFA queens. This is biblical, effective, and humane. It’s time we stopped apologizing for it.”
Sen. Roy Blanton (R–Scurry) added, “If France could do this in 1790, Texas can do it better.”
But opposition is strong, including among suburban Republicans, many of whom feel the bill goes too far.
“I like killing murderers as much as the next gal,” said Sen. Kim Ables (R–Arlington), “but this feels like something you’d see in a steampunk execution dungeon. I’m worried about what this says to our daughters.”
Sen. Lindsey Koehler (R–Sugar Land) echoed the concern: “This is the kind of thing that sounds good until you explain it to your six-year-old. Any mother who’s ever had a dog ruin the carpet knows how to explain lethal injection.” A viral video posted at 3:34 p.m. shows Koehler's daughter looking at anime renderings of the whole head guillotine in action and giggling happily. Koehler could not be reached for additional comment before deadline.
Democrats were more blunt.
Sen. Tomas Reyna (D–El Paso), said, “It’s cruel, unconstitutional, and deranged. Texas should aim higher than Vichy France — even if Mason is trying to be Laval.”
Sen. Buck Halford (R–Greenville) responded, “Laval had a hell of a run until the Russian winter stopped him. I'd take that kind of leadership any day. It’s why the British exiled him.”
The Act would establish the Texas Whole Head Guillotine Court, which would consist of a district champion football coach, a licensed veterinarian, and a bonded exterminator—appointments that Mason defended. “We trust these people with our children, our dogs and our termites,” Mason said. “Why do murderers deserve better?”
An internet poll showed 46% of Texans supported the measure, with 48% opposed. Support among men outpaced women by twenty-three points.
Asked whether the bill was politically motivated in the wake of a recent scandal involving Mason, a ferret, and a now-viral photo, the Senator said, “I’m not proud of everything I’ve done. I am a sinner seeking grace.”
Later, when pressed about the bill’s moral implications, Mason said, “Some people — Jeffrey Dahmer, Adolf Hitler, Hunter Biden — don’t deserve a second chance. I do. An eye for an eye leaves too many blind and on welfare. This is cleaner. ‘For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong.’”
The bill has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee for review next week. For now, the Capitol waits.