CommenTerry, February 14th, 2007
"Rage, rage against the dying of the light." -- Dylan Thomas (from his poem Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night)
During an informal discussion about death and dying several years ago, a former coworker of mine was asked about his thoughts on the subject. He replied, "I'm against it." He couldn't have nailed it any better!
The conventional foolishness holds that one who is willing to use any means necessary to save his own skin is somehow indecent or immoral. However, I refuse to judge someone for doing this. I believe we all have a moral right to do anything that we feel we need to do (or abstain from whatever we feel the need to abstain from) in order to preserve our own lives. We have this right in spite of laws that say we cannot use "excessive force," or those that demand that we must submit to military conscriptions, for example. Those are man's laws, not God's laws.
I think it's great that we have heroes like Wesley Autry, who recently jumped onto the tracks of a subway to save a young man from almost certain death. However, had Mr. Autry decided not to put his life on the line like that, he should not have been criticized. Neither should anyone else who fails to be as heroic and courageous as he was. Not everyone is born with the level of courage that is required for that kind of heroism. But even those who do have it also have the right to choose not to exercise it. All too often, we forget that principle.
In addition, I don't see why we should have such a problem with condemned criminals choosing to fight it out to the end and taking Dylan Thomas' advice to "not go gentle into that good night." For example, I would not have thought any less of Saddam Hussein, had he been willing to exercise his right to resist death. Who did he think he was impressing by "dying a like a man"? What did he have to lose if he had decided to lie down and refuse to get up? I'm sure it's possible to hang someone who won't stand up, but it would obviously require more effort and personnel. Why make anything easy for those who are about to snuff out the only life you will ever have on this earth? Biting, scratching, kicking, screaming, spitting, and throwing up all over his killers are other tactics he could have used if he had so chosen. I know they wouldn't have liked it, but what could they have done in response? Could they have executed him twice?
I bet the death penalty would soon be abolished if every death row inmate decided to put up a fight on the way to his death. Imagine how much hassle it would be to administer the death penalty to someone you had to drag to the death chamber, all the while biting you, scratching you, kicking you, screaming loud enough to damage your hearing, spitting on you, and throwing up all over you. People would stop being willing to participate in executions. Once again, I know this flies in the face of the conventional foolishness and that baloney about "dying with dignity." Some would even say that would be a "cowardly" way to die. What a crock! Avoidance of death is the penultimate battle in life. When you're about to lose that battle, why worry about anything else?
Incidentally, where did the notion ever come from to assign some type of imaginary pecking order to the way people die? Why do we attribute honor to some deaths and dishonor to others, as if it means anything? Nature makes no distinction -- a person who dies "honorably" is just as dead as someone who dies "dishonorably." At any rate, dead is dead and it's always better to be alive than dead. The biblical writer says it best:
"For him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion." -- Ecclesiastes 9:4 (KJV)
