Choose GOOD OR BAD ?
I do not want to go and rant about this topic and will not after this, but I really want some people to understand the Hard Truth of this World. The world as I know it is not simply a choice between GOOD and BAD. Sometimes it is but, not so often. One can always pretend that it is that way, but it is not. Pretending is not living in reality and every thing we do or DO NOT DO –has consequences.
The Celebration of Ben Laden’s Death
Well I have watched the news of Americans in the street having a party , celebrating and having ceremony over the successful mission to capture or kill Osama Ben Laden. I am slightly ashamed of this as it is displayed around the world. Americans should not be celebrating like its a party and the war has ended as in the case of WW II. This is the emotion of a revenge ? The killing of Ben Laden is not what I consider murder as the same as some person comes up and kills another for personal reasons like stealing money. The killing of Ben Laden as I have explained previously seems to me to be an act that takes place in war. This is not the same as murder I believe. Killing is bad I agree (evil). Killing anyone is evil I believe.
Which brings me to my next point in this discussion.
The point which is missed by my pacifist friends in University and some friends here today is this. Sometimes this life in this real world brings us to pick between two evils. That is we only have bad choices and must somehow find a way to make a decision. Either choice is not good, but we must decide between our remaining choices which are all bad. We must determine which bad choice to pick. We must choose between two evils. Yet one must recognize that not making a decision is a choice with its own consequences. In medicine, we deal with this often. Should we amputate the patients leg or allow them to die of infection of that leg ? Nobody wants to cut off a leg that is a bad thing.
To bring this fact to a point of clarity allow me to give you a made up situation. Thought experiments if you will.
Case # 1
Imagine for a moment that you have three children. You and the three children are in a room. A man enters and has a gun. He hands you another gun and states he will kill your children, unless you kill him. He is crazy but will do that you believe. What choice do you make?
Case #2
Imagine you have a button in front of you that will set off a bomb in subway. This bomb will explode the minute you push the button and kill everyone on a train. Estimated deaths from this will be 100 people, most innocent. A person whom you trust comes to you and states, if you push that button at 5 pm it will kill everyone on train #3. He then tells you that on that train is a man with another bomb but this is a nuclear bomb and is taking the train to the large city where he will blow it up. The number of people killed if the nuclear bomb goes off is 1,000,000 estimated deaths. He tells you this at 4:49 and there is no other choice but to decide to push the button or train #3 or allow it to pass and he then can set off his nuclear bomb killing 1,000,000 people. So with in the constraints of this thought expiriement you have to choose between YOU killing 100 people or doing nothing and allowing the fellow with the nuclear bomb to kill 1,000,000 people. What do you do ?
My argumentative friends will come up with all types of things such as “this would never happen” or “I will fight with the guy and save my children” or some other imaginative way out. Yet to participate in this you must recognize that these are the situations and the choices in these thought experiments are limited. These people will do all they can to AVOID the issue. Yet avoiding this does not solve anything the outcomes are as stated so you must choose. Others will give the responsibility to God and say let God decide and this may be valid to some. My Mennonite friends would take this true religious pacifistic position.
Military commanders and intelligence agents and the President etc must make such decisions. That is what they do and its their job. Unless you have been in that position to make such choices, its easy to criticize and be holier than thou. However, the decisions and their outcomes are not to be celebrated as I have seen. How can you celebrate a bad choice , but given the circumstances one has to choose between two evils. In case #1 do nothing and your children die. In case #2 do nothing and a million people die. So decide ….the decision is yours. You may hope God intervenes or decides, but history has proven God allows things to happen and does not intervene so it seems. I cannot argue with what God decides as I have no idea really.
My point made is that sometimes life is difficult and the decisions one must make are between something horrible and something else horrible. As physician you learn to think that way. When I was in trauma ( I was not always a plastic surgeon) I made these choices often. It was not easy deciding to cut off some young mans leg and it was difficult, but when i realized I either cut the leg off or he would die I made the decision to cut off the leg ( or help the family make that decision really). You never know until you are in such position and have as much information. In the case of leg amputation was I 100% sure the young man would die if his infected leg remained? No I was not 100% sure , but if I did not choose I knew it may be too late. You cant wait till he is dead to know 100%. That is bringing home the choice between two evils well. I have been there.
So when one simply says “killing is bad” and therefor we should not do that we must realize also that not to take an action may have worse consequences. In the Osama Ben Laden case I do not have the information that the people who made the decision have. So I cannot condemn them nor can I celebrate the death of even an evil man. I wish my fellow Americans would not either. Revenge is never a good reason for such celebration.
doctor808
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