This blog used to be the reactions of a reader of the conservative Catholic journal First Things to the many fine articles to be found therein. Now it's just another minor blog of staircase wit, from just another minor blogger who doesn't realize that blogging is dead. About the only notable thing about me is that I am a Christian conservative who loathes creationism in all its forms. Enjoy your visit.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thank goodness for quotation marks....
...else one might think this is news, rather than a front page editorial.
Aren't you usually fairly emphatic about calling things by their proper names?
You may feel that torture is now necessary and proper to defend the country, but that doesn't make waterboarding anything other than what it is.
If you're planning to stoop to, "agressive interrogation techniques," and other such hallmarks of Soviet diction, with all due respect you should probably remove your post "The Anniversary Approacheth..." below.
I certainly can't in good conscience shrug off the fact that waterboarding was one of the favored torments of the Khmer Rouge. At the same time, I'm disinclined to equate innocent Cambodian townies with al-Qaeda jihadists. Neither will I shrug off the fact that, in five years, I haven't been killed in a terrorist attack. Not even once! There's a reason for that, and it isn't the Bush administration's opponents.
Unless you think that the CIA has mysterious powers of discretion, you might consider equating innocent Cambodian townies with innocent Afghani townies.
I've got friends in their eighties, and they weren't killed by Communists either. Not even once! Over a forty-five year cold war! And all without torture, and with habeas corpus intact. Forgive me if I find that a tad more impressive.
I think any burden of proof rests with the side advocating torture.
Of course the CIA is more selective than Pol Pot. That's your standard of morality? By that standard, Saddam Hussein was a moralist!
I get the feeling recently that as far as conservatives are concerned, anything done by the Bush administration is morally permissible as long as there existed a government that was much worse.
We are not discussing abstract violations of civil liberties. We are discussing torture. Worse, we are not discussing torture of the guilty, but torture as a tool to determine guilt. That you're willing to argue in favor of such a thing is simply remarkable. Is any moral sin acceptable as long as its stated goal is "keeping you safe" and as long as there existed a regime anywhere at any time that did worse?
Aren't you usually fairly emphatic about calling things by their proper names?
ReplyDeleteYou may feel that torture is now necessary and proper to defend the country, but that doesn't make waterboarding anything other than what it is.
If you're planning to stoop to, "agressive interrogation techniques," and other such hallmarks of Soviet diction, with all due respect you should probably remove your post "The Anniversary Approacheth..." below.
I certainly can't in good conscience shrug off the fact that waterboarding was one of the favored torments of the Khmer Rouge. At the same time, I'm disinclined to equate innocent Cambodian townies with al-Qaeda jihadists. Neither will I shrug off the fact that, in five years, I haven't been killed in a terrorist attack. Not even once! There's a reason for that, and it isn't the Bush administration's opponents.
ReplyDeleteUnless you think that the CIA has mysterious powers of discretion, you might consider equating innocent Cambodian townies with innocent Afghani townies.
ReplyDeleteI've got friends in their eighties, and they weren't killed by Communists either. Not even once! Over a forty-five year cold war! And all without torture, and with habeas corpus intact. Forgive me if I find that a tad more impressive.
I think any burden of proof rests with the side advocating torture.
ReplyDeleteOf course the CIA is more selective than Pol Pot. That's your standard of morality? By that standard, Saddam Hussein was a moralist!
I get the feeling recently that as far as conservatives are concerned, anything done by the Bush administration is morally permissible as long as there existed a government that was much worse.
We are not discussing abstract violations of civil liberties. We are discussing torture. Worse, we are not discussing torture of the guilty, but torture as a tool to determine guilt. That you're willing to argue in favor of such a thing is simply remarkable. Is any moral sin acceptable as long as its stated goal is "keeping you safe" and as long as there existed a regime anywhere at any time that did worse?