Either It's Bad or It Ain't

I think I'd shoulder the ethical burden and kill Hitler.

Now that's a way to begin a topic. But seriously, if I had the opportunity, even if it meant I myself would suffer and die, even if it meant killing another human being, to which I'm morally opposed, I think I could be morally pragmatic enough to kill Hitler. The Holocaust was bad enough that, for just the chance of preventing it alone (leaving aside all the other bad stuff for which Hitler was directly or indirectly responsible), I would do a bad thing myself and murder Hitler. I don't think there are many people who would disagree. There are some who wouldn't actually go through with it, and there are some who cannot compromise their morals even that much (and I respect that, I truly do), but most people would probably view killing Hitler as, if not a good thing (and goodness knows many people would view it as a good thing) at least a forgivable thing.

So for most people, there are some things which are so bad that even doing bad things to stop them would be justifiable. It's not pretty, but it's true. It's a moral gray area, or rather a bunch of moral gray areas. And I think that a lot of people use the Holocaust as a benchmark for badness.

Therefore, if you think that something is worse than the Holocaust, you should be doing more than you probably are to stop it. It's just that simple. Either something's bad enough, or it's not.

The anti-abortion crowd uses rhetoric comparing abortions to the Holocaust frequently. If you truly believe that abortion is worse than the Holocaust, by God you should applaud the killing of doctors who perform abortions. If you don't, you either think that the Holocaust is small potatoes (which is crap) and therefore think that abortion is fairly small potatoes too (unlikely), or you're such a principled person that you don't believe there is any cause worthy of murder... in which case, you don't believe in the death penalty or war. There are undoubtedly a few people who believe the latter, and again, I have deep respect for those convictions. But the vocal people, the ones on Fox News and holding signs and being assholes in general, do not hold those convictions, so either they're hypocritical for saying that abortion is worse than the Holocaust, or they're hypocritical for getting worked up about something which, to them, is less important than they let on.

Similarly, anti-whaling organizations (I watched some Whale Wars on Animal Planet) have compared the killing of whales to the Holocaust. Yet they don't seem to take it seriously enough. They spend their time protesting by being annoying. If I genuinely thought that killing whales was worse than the Holocaust, or even close to the Holocaust, I would be blowing up whaling boats. It's just that simple. There are even ways one could be extreme without killing people, at least not intentionally. One could cripple the boats, take their crews hostage, do all kinds of crazy things. Instead, we get protest by annoyance. It speaks to their comparisons, and trivializes their own cause while trivializing the Holocaust as well (as I have when I said it was merely "bad." I should have said "evil" or something similar, and even then it's not enough. Not to mention the fact that bandying about the Holocaust is fairly trivializing in general).

Basically, either it's bad, or it's not, as I said in the title in frank patois. Either it's bad enough to do something about, or you're just paying lip service, and I can do without lip service. There are so many causes out there that people trumpet, but that's really all they do: trumpet. There are far fewer people actually doing something about various bad things.

One last bit: smoking. This cuts to the core of "bad or not." If smoking is bad, and no one should do it, then why do we keep paying lip service to that idea? Either it's bad, or it's not. The quote comes from this article on the BBC.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that FDA regulation could reduce underage smoking by 11% over the next decade, and adult smoking by 2%.

Okay, so either it's bad, in which case we should be aiming to reduce smoking by 100%, or it's not, in which case why are we worried about it? Supposedly, this is tough legislation. Why is smoking still legal? You know the answer, I know the answer. But it pays to look at the responses to smoking; they tell you all you really need to know about the government's real attitude toward smoking. I'm not saying that I think there's a solution, but if "tough" legislation aims to reduce smoking by 10% over a decade, that's just not that tough. That's like kicking Hitler in the shin in an effort to stop the Holocaust. Sure, every little bit helps, and if it's the best you can do, then do it. But if it's only the best you try to do...