Moral Values

This is a cross-post from Epinions Addicts:

In a discussion at Epinions Addicts we got into the "definitions of torture" syndrome. This was my response to one set of comments:

I'm simply going to point out that the whole "definitions" exercise is a dodge -- if you get everyone tied up with defining just which of the reprehensible activities you want to engage in are the most reprehensible, they're going to forget about the real issues, which in this case are that we don't do that, and we don't leave it up to one person of dubious reliability to make those decisions. (And, to forestall the inevitable cries of "Bush hatred," let me add that's not the kind of power I would consent to give to any president, any time -- in cases like this, everyone is of dubious reliability.) That is a major reason we have the moral authority in the world that we do -- or did. I think any responsible person is going to say that one of the premier values of any civilized people is that you don't mistreat people who can't defend themselves. That's certainly one that I grew up with, if you want to talk about traditional American values.

Now we're saddled with an administration that's no more than a bunch of schoolboys who get their jollies pulling the wings off flies. Yeah, well -- they're only flies.

It's all of a piece -- incarceration on the decision of one person, no charges, no recourse, "coercive interrogation," gulags, warrantless wiretaps of anyone deemed "suspicious," no judicial review, no congressional oversight, "war" against a tactic -- and a "war" with no end in sight. . . .

Please don't hand me the "post-9/11 world" BS -- just exactly how has the world changed? Terrorism has been a reality in this world at least since the Easter Uprising, we've had to deal with horrible, brutal regimes determined to conquer the entire world, and now suddenly we have to remake America in the image of a police state with all the stalinist grace notes?

No.

(OK -- I'm ranting. But it offends me on a very basic level to see a group that cloaks itself in moral values blithely violate one of the most basic and most nearly universal of those values and then turn around and demand that we not only validate that behavior but participate in the destruction of our own country.)