2012

Imagine this hypothetical.

Of course it fictional. But there is a point to it.

The Church has declared genocide to be intrinsically evil.

In 2012, two historical leaders have been brought back to life. Each one has found their political party of choice and has, somehow, become a candidate for President of the United States.

The Democrats have Adolf Hitler as their candidate. He wants to help the United States get out of its economic slump. He wants to make sure the poor are able to get better jobs, the health care they need, and a greater sense of personal dignity than they have had in the past. He wants the nation to feel proud of itself through a new cultural renaissance. However, he points out the problem with the US is that the Jews have hindered the nation, and the only way to make sure the nation is able to attain a new era of prosperity is if we get rid of all the Jews. Once and for all. The final solution must be put into effect.

The Republicans have chosen Joseph Stalin as their candidate. Because of his historical ability to oppose Hitler, he is their man. He wants the United States to be a military power with sufficient strength to oppose all threats to the nation, external or internal. He promises to make sure the United States takes indirect control over Mexico and Canada as satellite nations. He also wants the general populace to be more prosperous than they have been in the past. This, he says, will be done in part by reinforcing current laws and helping to re-establish a perfectly ordered state. But he thinks there is a major problem: there are too many enemies of the state within the nation. They are destroying the nation, making sure it cannot be as great as it should be. They are not the Jews. They are not of any one race. They are all over the nation. They must be removed. So he proposes that he will find them and put them in prison camps. He will force them to engage in extreme, even dehumanizing, manual labor which will quickly kill them off. But their labor will help create a better nation and provide material support for those not in the camps.

The Democrats point out that Stalin’s plans would result in far more deaths, over three times as many deaths as Hitler’s plan. And they also say he would bring us into an unprovoked war with Canada.

The Republicans point out that the deaths are a sad but necessary evil. Enemies of the state cannot be left in the state, because they are a cancer to society and will only destroy the nation from within. The United States has fallen into hard times because of them. The United States can re-emerge as a respected and feared world power once its internal threats are dealt with. And since it is not genocide, and the people are not being directly executed, it can’t be said that Stalin supports an intrinsic evil. Even if it is clear that he intends the deaths of more people than Hitler, what he is doing cannot be said to be murder because their death would only be indirectly accomplished by the state. Biological failure would be the primary cause of their death. Some people might even be able to survive and thrive in the camps.

Would you accept the Stalinist propaganda in these circumstances? Would you vote for him because his policy is the lesser of the two evils, and one must, after all, make sure Hitler doesn’t get into power?