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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (54765)	8/16/2002 9:34:42 PM
From: J. C. Dithers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Wow, I figured I'd stump you with "Soylent Green" I'm impressed. You recall details I'd forgotten. Now I remember the Edw. G. R. scene. No, when you think about it, there is nothing really immoral about surviving on the dead. (I'm not sure whether the elderly deaths were voluntary, but they may well have been, as you seem to recall). There was the Donner Party in the Sierra Nevada, also. Poor Donner became synonymous with cannibalism, after they were trapped in snow in the 1800's and survived by eating their dead. And there have been similar real-life tales of people adrift at sea after a shipwreck. One of the great plot twists (whether fact or fiction) is the drawing of straws to determine who should die so that the others may live. I'm fairly sure I read a true story about the latter scenario that may have involved survivors of a whaling ship in the Pacific that sank.. That really puts a spin on it ... do you have the right to take one life to save eight others? You are quite right ... these are dreary tales, yet the morality issues make for fascinating discussion. I remember a Catholic brother in my prep school insisting that a captured soldier could not lie to his interrogators, even though his answers might betray his comrades in hiding. His point was that lying is a sin and is never justified. I have to tell you that I had a hard time swallowing that one. It's a good thing that I was never captured by the enemy when I was in the service.