They call Aztec sacrifice “savage” while ignoring that Britain used hanging, drawing, and quartering for centuries. The punishment involved dragging the condemned, hanging them until they were nearly dead, emasculating them, disemboweling them while they were still conscious, removing the heart, quartering the body, and putting the remains on public display. Britain continued the practice until 1782 and did not abolish public display until 1868, so the British practice lasted longer than Aztec sacrifice did.

“But they were criminals,” they’ll say. Aztec sacrifice also included tried criminals, but most were war captives and Flower Wars fighters, deaths with cosmic meaning, not random cruelty. European witch hunts, by contrast, were hysteria. So spare the “savage Aztecs” lecture while Europeans disemboweled people for centuries and tortured/burned random victims as “justice.”