Imagine this scenario - the POTUS visits Dallas. While he’s on a parade going down the street, you climb up to the top floor of… say… a book depository to get a better look, and find a man at the window with a rifle sighting on the prez. He’s about to pull the trigger and there’s no way you can reach him in time. You do have time to pull your concealed carry piece and shoot him before he fires, but you can’t because you’d be charged with murder! So you have to let the President die because of a restrictive law. Therefore in order to protect the President’s life I propose a federal statue overruling each state’s murder laws. It may cause some hardship, but this scenario proves the necessity.
OK, astute readers will realize I’m not serious, but when I was listening to a debate yesterday regarding waterboarding (inspired by the AG nomination) and the pro- side brought up the common “life is an episode of 24” point of the “ticking time bomb” scenario. And it struck me that the argument above, while on the absurd side, is fundamentally the same.
And in the above scenario the person would just shoot the would-be assassin and while they would be arrested, they’d be out pretty quickly as soon as the facts were known, and wouldn’t consider that a hardship. So let me ask anyone who supports the “ticking time bomb” argument, why not go ahead and take measures you think are necessary and deal with the repercussions afterwards?
The law already allows for this kind of situation. Killing a would-be murderer to save an innocent (and W would be “innocent” at least for these legal purposes) third party comes under the heading of justifiable homicide.
OK, maybe I focused too much on my example and shouldn’t have made the subject reflect it. My point was that the “ticking time bomb” talking point that keeps getting repeated is a ridiculous one and invalid. I was hoping someone would present a counterargument in support of it.
So do you feel that the ends justify the means in ALL situations? Because it seems to me that is what you are saying.
In you scenario, there is a pretty clear cut line of results. I kill shooter, shooter doesn’t kill president. Let’s alter the scene a bit.
The POTUS visits Dallas. While he’s on a parade going down the street, you climb up to the top floor of… say… a book depository to get a better look, and find a man at the window with what seems to be a gun. You think he’s about to pull the trigger and there’s no way you can reach him in time. You do have time to pull your concealed carry piece and shoot him before he fires…
(Italics are my change wording)
What if the man is really a secret service agent, watching for snipers? What if the gun is a camera? What if it’s not really the president down there: you are looking out the wrong window on the wrong day?
Your scenario only works if we are omnipotent. I’m not, are you? So are you willing to let people commit murder (or torture) on the CHANCE that they know what is going on, that they have the correct person, that they are asking the correct questions, that the prisoner is giving the correct answers?
Yes, I’d love it if it was possible to gather information in a timely manner, and prevent tragedies from happening. I don’t believe that the US government (since that is what this OP is really about) has the capability of getting it.
If he already had a gun out, you could make it as though you were acting in self defense, maybe.
If I was in that scenario, in 2007, not 1963, I’d draw s-l-o-w-l-y, clear my throat, and say “hey, man, nice shot, but don’t get any funny ideas about trying to cap ME”. I could then be the star witness/capturer, get a multi-million dollar book/movie deal, and be shed of chimp-boy all in one fell swoop. Win-win-win!
Oh, wait; President Cheney…never mind…
One twist is that while the shooter can only kill a few people before real Secret Service people kill him, whereas terrorists can kill hugely larger numbers of people with little personal risk. Maybe modifying the scenario to having a possible suicide bomber (with the stereotypical rig around his body, and a bright red button) would be more informative.
Legally and ethically, your intention counts at least as much as the act itself. That’s why “attempted murder” is a crime, even if you totally screw up and the person isn’t even hurt . . . much more than a totally innocent act which accidentally results in someone’s death.
This thread seems to be mainly about justifiable homicide/manslaughter. I was kinda curious about a society in which deliberate killing might not necessarily involve criminal prosecution by the state. Maybe something like a resurrection of the ancient concept of weregild, in which provided all parties involved were satisfied with the outcome, that would be the end of it. Or maybe some variation of dueling, where two people voluntarily agree that the world is too small for both of them.
:smack: Gah, I signed up after years of lurking for the purpose of debating the topic whether or not the “ticking time bomb” scenario is a justifiable excuse for legalizing torture in the form of waterboarding.
While I think the direction this is going is a fascinating one, could we for the sake of this newbie steer back to that?
Chocolate suggested that this was an “ends justifies the means” argument, but I think it goes even beyond (below?) that to “the possible ends justify the extended means”. As mentioned in that same post, we are not omniscient yet it’s assumed we know that: 1. there really is a “ticking time bomb” and 2. torture will correctly reveal the secrets. And while I think that’s a weak enough excuse in general, does anyone think that legalizing torture means that it will only be used in such an extreme situation or rather that it will become the first method of choice?
“The Government” is not capable- however, the person standing over the guy tied to the chair is (most likely) quite capable of knowing how to extract information, and whether it would be of any use to pursue said extraction.