Would you save Dick Cheney?
So ponder this scenario. You’re an organ donor, right? Checked the box when you got your drivers license, whatever. So on your way home today, a bus plows into your car, and you end up hooked to a machine about to expire. Initial testing shows you might be a donor candidate for Dick Cheney.
So here’s the question.
Does Dick Cheney live or die?
He’s currently fitted with a LVAD, which is a device meant for people in the end stages of heart disease, a mechanical means to keep them technically alive until a new heart can be found. (It also means he doesn’t have a pulse…creepy.) Even with a new ticker he’s not got long to live, most likely…but what if your soon to be useless to you heart could keep him alive, after you’re gone.
Tough question, ain’t it? On the one hand, it is apparent that Cheney will never face judgment for what he’s done. He’s sent thousands to their deaths over lies, he’s committed treason, fuck, he shot a dude in the face and walked away laughing about it. Next time you’re hammered with a 12 gauge, you try it and see if you can keep the sheriff cooling his heels overnight while you sober up. His secret energy commission green-lighted the abuse of nature that is BP and the Gulf spill, under his leadership Halliburton traded with Iran in violation of US law, and he continued to profit from his warmongering ways even after become VP. He is, without a doubt, one of the sleaziest operators in a town where moral deprivation is a resume tool.
Would you let him die?
The golden rule tells us to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, so despite his complete indifference to the suffering of others, his grotesque sense of American Exceptionalism, and his sneering, mocking contempt for all human life but his own, you’re supposed to turn the other cheek and give him life. Now I’ve worked hard to find peace with the world, truly I have, but in this case, it would be mighty difficult to ignore the appeal of being the person who finally passed judgment on an evil man.
What say you? Would you be the one to give this odious creature even another day of breath? In doing so, you’d be a far better person than he, certainly.
Or would the lure of judgment move you to say no?
