Thread by @dcpetterson

The dangers of ethical decisions weigh heavily in the fiction I write.

Here's one I'm likely to include in something I'm working on now:

Imagine you're in a life-and-death struggle. Do you accept dangerously imperfect allies?

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Here's the sort of thing I'm talking about, a situation where the mortal threats are immediate:

Suppose you're in a war. You've taken a mission with 5 other soldiers. Surrounded on all sides, you fear you must keep all your comrades alive, or you have no chance of escape.

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You are almost certain to be overrun and then to die, but your odds increase if more of your friends remain able to fight.

But you learn one of them is a really terrible person. Maybe a murderer or a rapist. Or a racist homophobe. Imagine the worst thing you can imagine.

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Maybe he did violence to your family, a sibling or parent, a child or a spouse. Imagine the worst crime you can.

But you know this awful person will do everything possible to keep you alive--because even he knows the more of you survive, the greater his chances, too.

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You also know when the crisis is over, all of you who escape (including the criminal beside you) will be rewarded--with medals and honors, perhaps even wealth.

And you know any crimes committed earlier will be pardoned. The scumbag will get away with it.

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Your only chance to hold the horrible person beside you accountable for his crimes is for you to kill him yourself, or to throw him to the enemies outside--

--which will almost surely guarantee your own death.

Here's the question: How dedicated are you to justice?

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I won't make the pro- and con- arguments here. That's what the novel is for.

Let's raise the stakes. You'll die if the evil person beside you dies. You need his help.

Iif your mission fails--if you don't escape--it's not just this one mission. Your nation would also fall.

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Yes, you're a patriot. But of course, you're not merely defending a nation. If your homeland is conquered, totalitarianism will prevail. ALL of Western democracy will collapse. Nothing you wanted--for yourself, your loved ones, your descendants--will survive.

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The future of humanity, of freedom, of everything you value--

-- rests on you allowing the poor excuse for a human beside you to survive, and allowing him to be honored for having triumphed.

Oh, and there's this:

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Even if you let him live, the mission is not guaranteed. You all still might die.

Or some might die (perhaps you) and yet enough might escape (maybe the scumbag) for the mission to succeed. But you might not live to see it.

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Do you let him live, knowing this?

Or perhaps most of you will die, and only one will survive--not enough to save democracy, though. Maybe you're convinced the criminal will find a way to make it through even that.

Remember, if you kill him, the odds of disaster go up.

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What do you do?

Maybe the proper solution to this deadly decision is obvious. I could be kinda slow.

That's the sort of knife edge I like to put into my stories.

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Sometimes I think we're living exactly this. I see the dilemma for every issue that divides Democrats.

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I won't expand on the parallels, but the same conundrum exists every time there's a report of someone's life-or-death priority moving slowly in Congress, or of some compromise that gave us less than we need.

Who do we throw under the bus for =that= one?

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What evil person do we ban from our midst now? --even while we know that the fewer survivors there are on our side, the closer we are to seeing the end of civilization.

Not sure what made me think of this today.

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On another topic, Republicans are committing genocide.

It's on purpose. It's intentional. You know that.

Say it out loud. Say it often. Say it now. Tell others.

Republicans are committing genocide.

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