Jun 11, 2009

The silence from the ticking-time-bomb crowd

Though I appreciate Frank Schaeffer's boldness and credibility, I generally agree with Nat that his "You know who was a real asshole? My dad and his stupid evangelical friends. Come read my latest HuffPost rant about it!" routine is wearing thin. (This post had its excesses but was powerful and much-needed; this one's mostly just over the top.)

So I could take or leave this Rachel Maddow interview with Schaeffer. But the clip's worth watching for Maddow's intro, when she briefly raises the question of whether Scott Roeder, who has volunteered that he has information about future violent attacks against abortion providers, is pretty much a textbook example of who, if anyone, should be tortured by the authorities. (Leaving aside the definition of "terrorist," it's certainly worth noting that Roeder, unlike most of the people at Gitmo, is clearly guilty.) Here's Maddow:


She's not the only one to bring this up. Zachary Roth asked Dick Cheney, John Cornyn, Charles Krauthammer, and Rich Lowry whether they'd support using enhanced interrogation techniques on Roeder. Three days later, he's still waiting for a reply.

6 comments:

  1. PhilJune 12, 2009 at 2:46 PM

    I thought torture was always wrong. Certainly that is what I believe. This truly just muddies the water enough to make me trust less, not more. Why is this even a topic we are discussing?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Steve ThorngateJune 12, 2009 at 2:57 PM

    Of course it's wrong; that's not the point. The point is to call Cheney and the others out for supporting the torture of some (suspected) bad guys and not of other (known) ones--the inconsistency makes their arguments (even) less credible.

    ReplyDelete
  3. PhilJune 12, 2009 at 5:01 PM

    I get it, I just don't see the reason for a news agency to do this sort of thing. I guess I am old and still feel news departments report news and editorial boards comment and comedians make light of the news. It seems all of the above get rolled into one and we call it news. I know that is the way it is, just saying I don't like it. Certainly do hope our government pursues these psychos to the full extent of the law. Don't know that they will.

    ReplyDelete
  4. NatJune 13, 2009 at 12:43 AM

    Meh, I'm sort of at the point where I consider it plain enough that the arguments advanced by Cheney and his ilk are invalid on their own terms. This sort of analysis, to my mind, runs the risk of actually encouraging the same excesses and false fears that advocates to torture made.
    The allegation that Maddow makes that Roeder has committed an act of "violent extremism" seems to obscure the more relevant point -- he is a United States citizen, accused of murder (on damn good evidence), and is exercising his Constitutional right to remain silent.
    I, for one, would like that right to remain unhindered, and to tackle the Cheneys on their Constitutional violations. Not on rhetoric that carries the potential to erode 4th and 5th Amendment protections.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Steve ThorngateJune 15, 2009 at 10:12 AM

    I disagree, Nat--certainly not with your pro-constitutional-protections stance, but with the idea that making this sort of point runs a serious risk of leading us back/further down that dark road, especially since it's being made by people who have been unequivocal in their opposition to torture.

    You're right that Roeder's citizenship is the most meaningful difference between him and most of the "enemy combatants"--though there are certainly others, and, while it's impossible to prove that they make the difference for the torture-mongers, it's also not hard to imagine. But more importantly, there are exceptions even to this one meaningful difference: Jose Padilla, for instance, is a U.S. citizen, too.

    It's not at all clear at this point that the people responsible for the torture done in our name are going to be held accountable for it, so I'm generally going to come down in favor of additional efforts to draw attention to their lawlessness and hypocrisy. I'm glad that a lot of us no longer find their arguments credible, but that may not be enough.

    ReplyDelete
  6. NatJune 15, 2009 at 3:09 PM

    Yes, I see what you mean. I might clarify that I'm not trying to suggest that you or Rachel Maddow are leading us down the road to perdition with this reasoning. Far from it -- I don't think that there's anything that inheres in the broader argument that cuts against civil liberties.

    We agree on far more than we disagree here -- what Krauthammer, Lowry, Cornyn, Cheney, and others have publicly said about torture is nigh-on-evil; it embraces a repudiation of American law, treaty obligation, our historical ethos, and agreed-upon rules for warfare. But Maddow's argument doesn't seem to go anywhere except point out the idea that we already share -- that those fellows are dreadfully wrong, inconsistent, and hypocritical when they talk of law and rights -- at the expense of ignoring more fundamental issues of law and rights that are in play in particular cases. (I don't mean they always have to be ignored. Just complaining that Maddow didn't even give lip service: "Despite the fact that [Roeder] has been charged...he still hasn't spoken to police." Well, that's his right).

    You rightly mention Padilla -- classic example of a US citizen who those fellows would have been eager to torture (and detain indefinitely) despite the fact that he could be dealt with justly in our court system.

    I think all that we disagree on is whether this is ultimately persuasive in calling attention to the lawlessness/hypocrisy of Cheney. You make the case far better than Maddow does, perhaps in part because she tried to make a rather complicated argument in just a couple of sentences.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)