The same utilitarian ends could have been reached, and should have been reached, in any one of thousands of different ways, years ago, that wouldn’t require this.

Fuck the ghoul and all he’s done. But just think of the level of political degeneration required to get to the point where a malicious actor gradually being paralyzed by illness in public is your most feasible option for resolving a political problem. I can understand why you would cheer for this, but the reminder that your country is even in such a situation that cheering for it makes any sense at all is itself something that I find horrifying.

Besides, the entire point of utilitarianism is to evaluate possibilities dispassionately, and choose what results in the most useful outcome and end state. Like the other commenter said, “There is nothing utilitarian about taking ghoulish delight in the suffering of an evil old man”— The entire concept of evil is a more deontological or virtue-based construct— He’s on his way out, great, so celebrate the fact that he’s no longer causing harm, but once he’s gone, he actually doesn’t matter anymore— Contain the damage, tunc damnatio memoriae.

Idk. I feel for y’all, I guess. In a well-functioning democracy, this should have probably been resolved almost an entire generation ago, and you should barely even have any reason to know his name anymore. Everything about this situation is horrifying, from what he’s done to what’s happening to him now to the fact that he even still matters at all in the first place.