"Just Lather, That's All"

If the opportunity presented itself where Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein or any other cruel tyrant lives were placed in your hands would you end their lives? What if killing one cruel leader could save millions of innocent lives would you take that human life?

Would you travel back in time to kill Hitler?

A similar situation is presented in Just lather, That's all when an executioner walks into a rebels barber shop and asks for a shave seemingly, unwittingly putting his life in the hands of the barber; Who could potentially save the lives of his rebels friends by killing this man. However, as he is shaving the executioner an internal debate on whether to kill or not to kill strikes turmoil in the barber's head. 

"I'm a revolutionary not a murderer. And how easy it would be to kill him. And he deserves it. Does he? No! What the devil! No one deserves to have someone else make the sacrifice of becoming a murderer. What do you gain by it? Nothing. Other come along and still others, and the first ones kill the second ones and they the next ones and it goes on like this until everything is a sea of blood."

But this executioner could be said, in the eye of the rebels, to deserve to be executed himself. The barber describes Captain Torres as "A man of imagination, because who else wold have thought of hanging the naked rebels and then holding target practice on certain parts of their bodies?" Obviously Torres doesn't appreciate the sanctity of human life even if the rebels are detrimental to his cause do they deserve to used as target practice? And if Captain Torres doesn't care about taking a life why should the barber hesitate to take his?

For example in the T.V. show House Season 6 Episode 4 "The Tyrant" a brutal dictator, Dibala, who plans to kill of the ethnic minority in his country is treated by the team. Through faked blood tests and a providing a wrongful diagnoses Dr.Chase kills Dibala and potentially saves thousands of people from a mass genocide. But did he do the right thing? Dr. Chase in later episodes feels enormous guilt which is understandable a doctors golden rule is to "do no harm" and we can't see into the future to see if Dibala would have gone through his plan to kill thousands and if Dr. Chase saved those lives by taking one.

In Just Lather, That's All the barber makes a different call. He further goes on to debate how he would kill the executioner and how both sides would then view him.

"I'm sure that one solid stroke, one deep incision, would prevent any pain. He wouldn't suffer. But what would I do with the body? Where would I hide it? I would have to flee leaving all I have behind, and take refuge far away, far, far away. But they would follow until they found me. "Captain Torres' murderer. He slit his throat while he was shaving him a cowards" And then on the other side. "The avenger of us all. A name to remember. (And here they would mention my name.) He was the town barber. No one knew he was defending our cause."

In Star Wars the rebels are the good guys, they are Luke, Leia, Han, and the executioner is Darth Vader. I don't know what cause the barber or Captain Torres stand for but if they feel strongly enough about it, their actions could have good reasoning behind them. The Galactic Empire's reason for civil war is to restore the Sith to power, and the rebels is to restore the Jedi to power. It's good vs. evil, but both sides are fighting for what they believe it but who's right and who's wrong?

I think if he could get away with killing Captain Torres without any repercussions and his life would just continue like nothing ever happened then the barber would have killed the executioner. However, that is not realistic. And what would killing him really accomplish? Someone else would just kill the captured rebels except now the barber would be dead along with them. And I don't think the barber is willing to sacrifice himself for his cause if it isn't worth it.

Just Lather, That's all by Hernando Tellez