Maybe skip this one
So here's some really important things I'd like to share from listening to the news today.
Wolfowitz used to be in trouble because he arranged a dubious and substantial raise for his girlfriend at the World Bank. But in the last few days it's because he gave his "female companion" a raise. What's the deal with this silly language shift?
Another interesting phrase mentioned twice in as many days on the radio - "torture light." Maybe that's really supposed to be "torture lite." How charming.
I really thought I had a LOT more to say about the torture stuff, but I need to get off the desk soon.
What is happening to this country? This former soldier who wrote a book and admitted that he considers himself a war criminal was on the air yesterday. This one dude called in and said it's too bad but torture works and that's why it's been around for thousands and thousands of years. Excuse me, sir? Are you trying to say that human beings continue to do things only when they are reasonable, useful things to do, and discard the things that do not seem to work? Are you sure? It mightn't be because cruelty and power and anger are addictive things? Also, we continue to think that enough war will eventually bring peace. And we still have appendices.
There was a lot of discussion of the hypothetical scenario in which a nuclear bomb or 9/11 or something is going to go off or occur tomorrow, and we have a person who knows about it in custody. Some people say, yeah, that person's life/well-being/rights do not outweigh the lives of hundreds or thousands of people. This soldier guy says it won't work because if the prisoner knows s/he only has 8 hours to hold out, you won't get any information.
So here is one question I have: can one divide what is moral, or philosophically true or good from what is practical or should practicality always factor into moral discussion?
If we do, for a second, leave out that consideration that it probably won't work anyway, I have trouble with this scenario. This equation is not balanced. That prisoner's life is not worth more than a hundred peoples', innocent or not, depending on how you define that. Mathematically, it isn't even worth more than two other people's lives. How, in retrospect, would I personally reconcile myself to the fact that a bomb killed 36 people and just the night before I had put this person into a jail cell and made sure the phone call had been used, the lawyer contacted, food and water consumed, blanket provided. No questions. How would I be able to contain my own impotent fury if I were looking into the face of someone who I knew had information about the coming death and devastation and not want to strike out. Not only to try to prevent the bomb from going off, but in punishment for suffering about to occur.
I am not going about this in a very logical way. Just rambling, really. Just in case anyone is worried right now, I don't believe torture should ever be used. It's just the exercise of justifying that when confronted with a ridiculous, contrived situation like the one above.
So, maybe the equation is the definite and deliberate violation of one person's life/wellbeing/rights versus the possible loss of many peoples' lives (wellbeing/rights). Is this like that silly Hitler time machine question? If you could go back in time, should you kill Hitler before he started anything? No, you shouldn't because he hasn't done anything yet, and punishing people for crimes they haven't committed is wrong. Incidently, that was the question I thought Minority Report (movie, haven't read) was going to be about, instead of whether you can change your future or destiny or whatever.
And then there's this other thing, which I can't decide if it fits under the category of Selfishness or not. The idea of not lowering oneself to the same crimes as ones enemies or predecessors. Other groups of people may use torture. But if these are people we are fighting, shouldn't we make every effort not to be like them? Isn't that really what ideological battle is about? With this struggle with The Terrorists, it has so often been broken down into Muslim vs. Christian, East vs. West. Ok, I hate to keep using words like terrorists and the enemy, not because they are necessarily untrue words, but because they are general terms imbedded in the rhetoric of the Bush administration and are primarily used to scare people. But that is not what this discussion is about. So, my apologies, but I don't know what else to do. Ahem, if "the enemy" chooses torture, we choose to uphold human rights. If the enemy chooses bombs, we choose negotiations, if the enemy chooses terrorism and oppression, we choose diplomacy, openness. (If the enemy chooses to slap you in the face, you choose to turn the other cheek, eh, Mr. President?)
Not only because those are good things to do, but because there is something about one's own self that must be protected. Something that is also human, along with the cruelty and power stuff, and terribly fragile and so hard to keep intact during a lifetime. I think I was trying to get at something about how when you deny the humanity in others, you make yourself less human. And aren't we all so very fortunate that my workday is over and I have to go home now?
Wolfowitz used to be in trouble because he arranged a dubious and substantial raise for his girlfriend at the World Bank. But in the last few days it's because he gave his "female companion" a raise. What's the deal with this silly language shift?
Another interesting phrase mentioned twice in as many days on the radio - "torture light." Maybe that's really supposed to be "torture lite." How charming.
I really thought I had a LOT more to say about the torture stuff, but I need to get off the desk soon.
What is happening to this country? This former soldier who wrote a book and admitted that he considers himself a war criminal was on the air yesterday. This one dude called in and said it's too bad but torture works and that's why it's been around for thousands and thousands of years. Excuse me, sir? Are you trying to say that human beings continue to do things only when they are reasonable, useful things to do, and discard the things that do not seem to work? Are you sure? It mightn't be because cruelty and power and anger are addictive things? Also, we continue to think that enough war will eventually bring peace. And we still have appendices.
There was a lot of discussion of the hypothetical scenario in which a nuclear bomb or 9/11 or something is going to go off or occur tomorrow, and we have a person who knows about it in custody. Some people say, yeah, that person's life/well-being/rights do not outweigh the lives of hundreds or thousands of people. This soldier guy says it won't work because if the prisoner knows s/he only has 8 hours to hold out, you won't get any information.
So here is one question I have: can one divide what is moral, or philosophically true or good from what is practical or should practicality always factor into moral discussion?
If we do, for a second, leave out that consideration that it probably won't work anyway, I have trouble with this scenario. This equation is not balanced. That prisoner's life is not worth more than a hundred peoples', innocent or not, depending on how you define that. Mathematically, it isn't even worth more than two other people's lives. How, in retrospect, would I personally reconcile myself to the fact that a bomb killed 36 people and just the night before I had put this person into a jail cell and made sure the phone call had been used, the lawyer contacted, food and water consumed, blanket provided. No questions. How would I be able to contain my own impotent fury if I were looking into the face of someone who I knew had information about the coming death and devastation and not want to strike out. Not only to try to prevent the bomb from going off, but in punishment for suffering about to occur.
I am not going about this in a very logical way. Just rambling, really. Just in case anyone is worried right now, I don't believe torture should ever be used. It's just the exercise of justifying that when confronted with a ridiculous, contrived situation like the one above.
So, maybe the equation is the definite and deliberate violation of one person's life/wellbeing/rights versus the possible loss of many peoples' lives (wellbeing/rights). Is this like that silly Hitler time machine question? If you could go back in time, should you kill Hitler before he started anything? No, you shouldn't because he hasn't done anything yet, and punishing people for crimes they haven't committed is wrong. Incidently, that was the question I thought Minority Report (movie, haven't read) was going to be about, instead of whether you can change your future or destiny or whatever.
And then there's this other thing, which I can't decide if it fits under the category of Selfishness or not. The idea of not lowering oneself to the same crimes as ones enemies or predecessors. Other groups of people may use torture. But if these are people we are fighting, shouldn't we make every effort not to be like them? Isn't that really what ideological battle is about? With this struggle with The Terrorists, it has so often been broken down into Muslim vs. Christian, East vs. West. Ok, I hate to keep using words like terrorists and the enemy, not because they are necessarily untrue words, but because they are general terms imbedded in the rhetoric of the Bush administration and are primarily used to scare people. But that is not what this discussion is about. So, my apologies, but I don't know what else to do. Ahem, if "the enemy" chooses torture, we choose to uphold human rights. If the enemy chooses bombs, we choose negotiations, if the enemy chooses terrorism and oppression, we choose diplomacy, openness. (If the enemy chooses to slap you in the face, you choose to turn the other cheek, eh, Mr. President?)
Not only because those are good things to do, but because there is something about one's own self that must be protected. Something that is also human, along with the cruelty and power stuff, and terribly fragile and so hard to keep intact during a lifetime. I think I was trying to get at something about how when you deny the humanity in others, you make yourself less human. And aren't we all so very fortunate that my workday is over and I have to go home now?