Originally posted by Steve
"...I fail to see the similarity between a small growth on your body and a murderous dictator."
Well in this case, lets consider that the body is the world, and that Hussein was the wart.
Now we know that the wart didn't pose a real threat to the body right? That should be clear now, right? The wart had zero ability to rise up from the foot and punch the world in the face, for example. It could not suck the brain down through a leg and devour it. It was just a pain in the foot.
So okay... We've got a soreness in the foot of this body. It is at this point that the body needs to consider its options. "This pain is annoying," the body might say. The body will then consider its options.
We could try and precision bomb it with Compound W, for example. Or, we could Shock & Awe it with an amputation of the leg. In fact there are several options, including the option to do nothing.
A cost/benefit analysis is needed at this point. A few questions immediately surface:
1) What cost is worth the removal of the pain? One range will be acceptable, and another range will be unacceptable.
2) Are all options of removal on the table? Or is one set of options acceptable, and another set unacceptable?
3) Is there a confluence of acceptable costs and acceptable options relative to the importance of removing the pain?
Keep in mind that the body experiences many different forms of pain. So you might just decide to ignore the wart and get rid of your back pain by drinking more water, for example. Not everything needs immediate and focused attention, just because it happens to be a source of pain.
Ridding yourself of pain in one area by any means available is not always the best move. And ridding yourself of pain does not inherently justify every possible way with which to rid yourself of the pain simply because it is pain. Just ask any vicodin addict.
In this analogy, having carte blanche in removing a wart by any means, with no regard to your entire health, with no regard to your bank account, and with no regard to the raised eyebrows it would cause, seems the act of a nutjob.
Not justification.
