My best argument for vigorous prosecution

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

(Vigorous prosecution does not imply improper prosecution. Nobody should be show-trialed who has a sound legal defense and if that applies to Bush himself I will say the same. And if there is no obvious statutory basis for prosecution we shouldn't try to think up something clever to get targeted parties.)

The thing that most compels me to favor vigorous prosecution is that I don't care.

I should, but I've always assumed we did all sorts of stuff and thus became largely deadened to this issue in the 1970s.

And that's why a line must be drawn based on ideas rather than gut-feeling... because we Americans tend to derive our sense of right and wrong from the criminal code more than from religion or philosophy.

The gut feeling often follows the law, rather than preceding it. Not long ago everyone drove without child seats. Today doing so marks one as some sort of monster. The mass-condemnation followed laws making child-seats mandatory. Smae thing with smoking... it used to be a bad personal choice. After it was banned most places it became wicked.

With torture we seem to be in a 1975 mode re: smoking. Everyone knows it's wrong but not wrong in that way crimes are wrong.

Things for which people are not prosecuted are more or less okay.

Why was the Micheal Phelps thing a big story? Because pot is illegal. Most people know beer is more dangerous than pot but if Phelps had been photographed drinking a beer it wouldn't have been a big deal.

Even some people who smoke pot (but are not intellectually rigorous) were probably upset about Phelps because his incident was an affront to the law. (Do people revere laws they break? Yes, many do. Almost everyone speeds sometimes yet most folks feel good about seeing people pulled over for speeding. The show of order comforts people. Many people shade the figures on their taxes and also feel good seeing some celebrity nailed for taxes. On a given Saturday night millions of people drive while over the legal alcohol limit yet there is no vigorous grass-roots pro drunk-driving lobby. Etc.)

The law informs, and arguably dictates, the national ethical sense. It probably shouldn't, but it does. So there is no way to roll-back our long-standing corruption of spirit independent of the law.

The political argument also moves me toward favoring a legal approach. If it is presumed to be dangerous politics to take the law seriously then that argues for pursuing it.

If it is bad politics then THAT constitutes a much greater crisis than torture itself. This is a democracy. If we believe that a weighty plurality of citizens would rebel at the idea of a law being enforced then we need to either get that law off the books or have the thing out to see where people really stand.

I don't think the politics are as perilous as they are painted but if they are then that means we have some bad laws. A democracy is weakened by laws with no popular support. The existence of such laws merely encourages contempt for all law.

Similarly, if we sign onto international agreements merely to look good but the American people do not support the ideals we sign up for then that's a problem. No nation should be signing treaties in which the people do not believe just for hollow show.

[pocoloco]

1. "I don't care." "became largely deadened to this issue in the 1970s."

Jesus Fucking Christ!!

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Well aren't you special...

The intellect is a handy thing for countering desensitization.

Desensitization is a universal human psychological phenomenon, except in your case.

And acknowledging the necessity of cold, indifferent law in countering the phenomenon of cultural desensitization is not, as you seem to think, a grave moral failing. It is rather the opposite.

I may well take torture more seriously than you do... in fact I almost certainly do since my convictions are not buttressed by the kind of self-righteous reaction formation your reply displays.

But congratulations. Your gaudy show of high moral status has doubtless earned you a place in hysteria heaven.