:bs:
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This letter to Andrew Sullivan does a good job of fleshing out something I was saying a week or two ago:
- Real patriots will break the law for the greater good and proudly face the music for their actions. Sometimes we have to do things that are wrong, but making the wrong lawful cheapens the choice.
The president and his crowd come from the top of corporate America where one can run a company into the ground and still get paid tens of million. Bush has no concept about self-sacrifice for the greater good. The army and CIA have always done things against the law but did it in the shadows. If they were caught, then they accepted their punishment. Oliver North made a choice. He broke the law and paid the price (sort of). This administration wants to take away that price. It is cheapening acts of patriotism. When an interrogator looks into a suspect's eyes, he should see a jury of his peers looking back and then he needs to make his choice.
When Americans think of torture they think of Dirty Harry standing over a serial killer whose next victim is running out of air at a remote location. Americans think of Harry as a hero for doing everything he can to save the victim. But what most people fail to realize is the thing that makes Harry the hero is not the act of torture. It is the choice to torture given he will face consequences for his action. If the consequences are removed then Harry becomes a meter maid.
Once the torture bill passes it won't take long before many, many more terror suspects will be tortured. A time will inevitably come when a detainee is found to contain some information that could have stopped a loss of life or property. At that time interrogators will have to account for not getting the information. Torture will become a cover-your-ass technique.
This is a sad time for morality and accountability.
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This has got to be one of the dumbest rationalizations I have ever heard. If torture doesn't work, fine, then we won't use it. If you think torture works, but the benefits it accrues are outweighed by the negatives that is also an argument that has weight.
But to say that legalizing torture is bad because it takes the necessity off self sacrifice away from the soldiers on the war on terror. Are you kidding me?
These guys sacrifice enough. Why do we need to make their lives even more difficult? They could probably have much higher paying jobs in the private sector and they risk their lives daily for their country. Why should we make the lives even more difficult than it already is? Why we would make them face the possibility of criminal charges for doing the right thing? We want to encourage them to do what is in the interest of this country, not discourage them.
The CIA has asked for clear parameters on what it can do, and you don't want to give it to them because it makes them less heroic? After all the sacrifices these guys make you want to put them in the position of having to worry about prosecution if they do the right thing?
First this person says: "Real patriots will break the law for the greater good and proudly face the music for their actions." Yes - but if they do something for the greater good why should they "have to face the music". Wouldn't it be better to set up a system where if they did something for the better good they are actually rewarded? Don’t we want to encourage, not discourage them, from doing things for the greater good.
The author in his breathtaking stupidity says: "Sometimes we have to do things that are wrong, but making the wrong lawful cheapens the choice." This is such twisted morality. If we have to do it then it is not wrong. Torturing someone to get information to save the lives of innocent people is not wrong. If it is wrong, we shouldn’t do it.
And to top off the stupidity of this statement: "Bush and other businessmen don't understand this because they come from a culture of greed." No the author doesn't understand this because they don't care at all about the people that are sacrificing for this country. To make their jobs more difficult to insure that their jobs are "more heroic" shows such a disregard for these patriots that is breathtaking. With friends like these who needs enemies? Bush and his friends that “are from the culture of greed” understand morality on a much deeper and saner level than the idiot that wrote this article ever could.
This is the part I love: "If the consequences are removed then Harry becomes a meter maid." So Dirty Harry risks his life by capturing a criminal and then saves a human life but because there is no chance he will face prosecution he is just a meter maid? How many meter maids do you know that risk their lives to save people. But according to the author it is not enough that he risks his life, and saves other lives, he also has to face the possibility of prosecution to be heroic.
He says that we are "cheapening the acts of patriotism" if people don't have to face consequences if they do them. How can an act of patriotism be cheap? Isn't it enough to do the right thing? We have to make it more difficult and make it harmful to the person that does it to give it weight? Why don't we just throw a cop in jail every time he does his job well? That sure would un-cheapen every act of patriotism.
Ty - are you sure this letter wasn't a parody. Can anyone really think like this and expect to be taken seriously? Did my sarcasm alarm not go off again?
