just sitting sermonising at my folks house and my dad came in and chatted to me about this amazingly hectic book he is reading about four of the people who saved jewish people during the second world war – i’ve booked it after him [avenue of the righteous – peter hellman] cos it sounds like the kind of book everyone should read

the one huge debate that raged during that time apparently was whether or not you kill a child if they are making a noise when the germans are nearby looking for people – easy enuff decision right? of course not… until it becomes a question of if this kid keeps making a noise then twenty people die… which probably still seems like an easy question, altho i would imagine it becomes a lot more complicated when you are hiding jews and the germans are outside your door – the good of the many over the good of the one

i’m not going to make a call either way cos i don’t think it’s possible to really know the answer until you are placed in that kind of situation and hopefully you and i never will be – but to try get your mind into that situation…

this has come up a lot cos me and tbV are halfway thru watching 24 series 7 and this series in particular a bunch of the characters are questioning jack bauer’s past and some of the things he did to get the results that he did and during the series he has changed the one-for-the-sake-of-the-many stance he has had while some of the others have changed their do-the-right-thing-in-the-current-situation-regardless-of-the-greater-consequences point of view and are starting to ‘get’ jack a little more… very interesting watching and possibly as i said the kind of choices we may never be faced with – unless you are a president or world leader… (or maybe even a local policeperson i imagine)

personally i have never subscribed to the ‘lesser of two evils’ point of view cos i intrinsically believe that you will never be put in a position where you are forced to do the wrong thing… but lately i have been giving it a lot more thort and wondering what if…

hopefully you nor i will ever get there…