What would Jesus do?

This post is inspired by the death of Jörg Haider. This post is NOT inspired by sympathy for his cause. This post is NOT about any conspiracies. It is rather about an interesting moral dilemma.

Though by now the authorities have stated that the politician mentioned had been speeding and been under the influence of alcohol at the time of the fatal accident, that is irrelevant. Let us forget that part. Let us even forget that persons name. Another Austrian fellow should be the focus of our discussion. Yes, the very same one who sported a rather nasty mustache and loving long walks with torches. Would it be ethical to kill that man before he gains absolute control of his country and forces the world to experience another devastating war? Hitler as baby argument with a twist so to say. We assume for the sake of the argument that this leader is already exhibiting harmful tendencies but is adored by his countrymen. What we are lacking is hindsight, we can only guess whether this person is a raving lunatic.

On the one hand we should not take our chances and act only when it is too late. Every moment wasted is another life lost. Right now, when he is in the opposition, he can be eliminated causing less of a fuss. Besides, it would not present the virulent extremists with a reason to embark on a quest on vengeance. At least on a more limited one. Even if we miss, it would be a single life, the lives and well-beings of billions are at stake. From that point of view it is not way too steep of a price to pay. Though there will be conspiracy theories, they are as relevant as those about aliens probing all the world leaders as a ritual way of welcoming them to their office.

Then again it is not that easy. Who are we to judge that person? There is no basis for us to be competent to establish such a precedence. If bush can do that, why can't Putin? Even the genocidal village elders in South-Eastern Africa will claim themselves to be responsible enough to take on such a burden. There is no institution impartial enough to be able to do something like this. That is not even to touch the subjects of one man's terrorist being another's freedom fighter. We simply cannot have everybody going on killing everybody. Under some categories G. W. Bush can be considered responsible for the deaths of thousands, should he too be taken care of? Not to mention the member of Congress, who voted in favour of attacking scary bearded men. Or the pock-marked dude in Ukraine responsible for dismissing the Parliament? Is he too a tyrant in the making as his opponents suggest? No bad guys have outed themselves as such, at least not voluntarily.

Therefore it is politically and morally wrong to embark on such a path. Then again the pay-off is immense, at the cost of a few lives, the world can be saved from another great war of mass devastation or even a nuclear one. What would Jesus do?

I wasn't there

Despite being late and not posting for a month I still am capable of thought. To prove that I'd point out a few important ideas spawned by the infamous film.

Instead of discussing the details of the plot all over again, I'd rather scrutinize the final moments. Yesterday was one of those rare days on which I happened to be watching TV. I'm not sure of the channel but I looked up the film I had watched. It was called "Stranger than Fiction" and it presented a rather curious problem. To summarise the plot, it is about a writer trying to finish her book about an especially insignificant man, Harold Crick. For no apparent reason, such a person exists and actually lives through everything the writer typed. This brings about a moral dilemma, should the writer finish the book by killing the protagonist and by that create a masterpiece, or write a mediocre happy end as to save the man's life.

The idea, which i found worth pondering, is too of the ending. As we all now, the finale was one of failure, the boys carted off by the police. As I am still human and suffer from all the side-effects of being attached to the protagonist, I found myself wishing for the boys to make it. On the other hand there is common sense explaining that Rass and others are common criminals nothing else. The emotional and involved side of me is crying for him to be released to live a happy life with his new-found woman. Naturally he would go back to school and eventually become a doctor. Then again, who would believe such a conclusion? It too would be mediocre if not poor, art and intelligence lost for a piece of petty hope. On the other hand it is not a bit more moral to create a character of immense appeal to the audience just to make him miserable. What could one do as a writer, the twin evils of human nature make an intelligent yet emotionally involving piece almost impossible to produce.