Those who had the most to contribute to society's future were saved-- i.e. children, their mothers, and other women who might bear children in the future. Weak, vulnerable, elderly men were left to go down with the ship.
It's also not directly comparable because what happened to the Titanic did not affect societal integrity as a whole. However, if doctors across the country chose to let healthy young men and women die in a pandemic so they could save the nursing home patients, retarded children, elderly multi-drug dependent cardiac cripples, and lunatics, who would rebuild civilization and look after all the others?
It sounds cruel and callous to let such helpless people die, but it is morally right and necessary in the case of a dire emergency.
-ccm
If we can coldly allow the people who raised us and who taught us G-d and morals, the innocents with Down's Syndrome, children who have diabetes, and all the other vulnerable people among us to die without even *trying* to save them, then we're not worth rebuilding.
This "Logical" and "Rational" way of thinking gave us Nazi Germany, Planned Parenthood and Professor Singer. "Life not Worthy of Life" they called it. These same people can just as easily decide that people of a certain political persuasion have a mental illness (where have we heard that recently?) and also need to be culled.
Hitler began his killing spree with disabled *children* for the love of G-d! Whether it's by the ovens or by simple neglect, the crime against humanity is the same.
The difference between a conservative and a liberal is that we VALUE life - ALL LIFE. We kill the murderer because he *took* a life and that is the only crime that has the punishment. We champion the unborn, the baby with Down's Syndrome, the coma patient. We fight the killing of our elderly. We take great care when it comes to "pulling the plug" or donating organs because we hold human life as sacred and precious.
When we become disheartened and even consider a situation where we can't champion *all* life, we become G-dless liberals and we've lost ALL faith.