Partisans really just do not get it
A very nice reflection on the torture question by David Harsanyi.
Sorry, History is Just Not That Simple
I really don't know what to tell liberals and conservatives, anymore. This period is not going to be remembered as a vindication of any ideology. Like every period, it will be a debate about ideas. And no ideology, like no religion, will ever be a victor in that conflict.
What that debate will yield, hopefully, is a more honest and compassionate wisdom that serves us and future generations.
And that is the best that anyone can or should hope for.
When they are being honest with themselves, that is.
2 comments:
I read the Harsanyi piece and I agree with it. I also think Bush brought this criticism upon himself by not crafting a coherent legal and political framework for doing what needed to be done.
All of those reflexively screaming "torture" are ignorant. We haven't even established the facts yet. And now that Pelosi was complicit, the facts will never be known.
I've seen the evidence, actually, foutsc. And there's some pretty rock solid evidence for real live torture, as far as murder in cases I've read.
The Administration is in trouble, is the truth, foutsc. That's what the whole Condi rant was about. She knows they're stuck. And she's watching the backs of her colleagues and hoping they will watch her's too.
But that can't last, foutsc. There's too much evidence.
That's why it's so ironic for so many conservatives to be taking on empathy in the courtroom, right now.
I've seen the evidence, foutsc.
Without empathy, this Administration is in deep shit.
I don't want that to happen.
I'm just honest about the fact that it is because I care about them and I don't want them or soldiers who engaged in torture prosecuted except in clear cases far outside the pale and where the intention to produce harm outweighs the stakes involved so substantially that I don't even have much a call to make.
In the cases of murder that I have seen (which could be wrongful accusations, I acknowledge), there is no excuse except in cases of clear self-defense.
And the Administration has moral culpability on this question even if I want to let them slide on legal culpability in many cases.
But if they can't acknowledge moral culpability, foutsc, and they stonewall these accusations with a debate about cases where torture should be permissible (a view I happen to share) and if they mock those who would have some heart for them, guess what?
Fuck them. They are fucked. And I'm not sticking up for them, if they're going to mock me and people like me who have some compassion for that fact that they were in a tough spot.
You be a dick, and you better hope you got a lot of dicks out there who can get you off the hook.
If you want decent people to look out for you, you better treat them decent.
And if not, fuck 'em. So sorry you're they're dicks. And I'll watch them be fed to the fuckin' wolves on the left and independent folks like Patrick Fitzgerald (I opposed the prosecution of Scooter Libby on the same grounds, by the way. I can just be honest that he did what they said he did and I just didn't want him to go to jail or be disbarred for it. I didn't have to make up all kinds of a bullshit about how they weren't guilty when they very clearly were) and not cry too hard when they successfully prosecute some people.
These kinds of situations, foutsc, when people are up for prosecution for stuff that they often clearly did, when we aren't getting lost in the bullshit, where the most pernicious, openly hypocritical, and cynicism-producing lying happens in political circles.
We will only make inroads insofar as we give up the bullshit of the last 10 years on the right and the left to yell "Prosecution" or "Lawsuit" every time we don't get our way.
It will give way, I'm confident. Most people are not the kind of pricks that breed like rabbits in politics. It will just take time for average people to follow their own hearts and tell the party hacks to fuck off on this one.
And I hope that means that the only people who will be prosecuted for torture are those who very clearly did so in ways that were clearly and without doubt beyond the pale. Otherwise, this question will be a muddled and impossible issue to resolve for the rest of our liberal democratic existence, I think. Because the emotions and stakes involved are just too serious to hold too high and unrealistic a standard on this one and not expect that this will be perpetual cat-and-mouse CYA from here to eternity on this question.
I'm hopeful, with the Washington Post taking a more compassionate lead on this question, that things will not stay stuck here on this question.
And I also have confidence in the American people, foutsc. Most people are far more decent than Washington or activists give them credit for. They get more decent and I get more confident in that the more I time in spend in this lifetime.
Let's hope that means that the Administration will not be pinned to the wall on this issue.
And, in the meantime, let's hope that partisans get figured out that the ballgame is changing.
Because it's the change in that ballgame that will ultimately shake us of the foolish and self-righteous impulses that drive this debate to the irrationally vindictive lengths that this torture debate has taken, on both sides.
I'm tired of this bullshit. I'm most tired of it not getting us anywhere and with people treated like some kind of afterthought to nonsense grandstanding.
We'll see what happens.
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