Ticking Time Bomb

Last night my family and I taped a new episode of 24, and then stayed up late so we could watch it conveniently without commercials, and two things amazed me. One is this ticking time bomb scenario, which the entire episode was based around! Do you allow Jack to beat one guy’s face in, if it could (key word could) save hundreds of lives? Most people are against the idea of torture, but not if they’re told it could save many more lives, but what people don’t understand is there is very little room for compromise. It hard to say, “I’m okay with torture, sometimes…” Reality doesn’t work that way. If you say yes to torture in these situations, you’re saying yes to torture in every situation.

However, like in last night’s episode, it’s hard to look a man in the eye, know he could be the key to saving many lives, if only you could press a little harder. How do you justify the deaths of the people that could result from not pushing the suspect harder? But once again, there is little to no room for compromise. If you say no to torture, you say no to torturing everybody, no exceptions.

This is what governments have struggled with in our new “ethical age”. Our values are constantly changing, from decade to decade, administration to administration, and these issues change with them. So is there a “right” answer? Well no, because it’s an opinion, but is there a moral thing to do? I think this is one of those things we just can’t answer, but if we ever want to truly be the role model we need to realize we are, and then we need to approach these hard issues head on. Without compromises, no more picking and choosing appropriate situations.

Look for my other issue with the 24 special in my next blog post!