Sunday, January 06, 2008

Beyond Good and Evil



What is in the Bush/ Neocon psyche that is not morally troubled by torture? Apparently they only fear prosecution and impeachment which keeps them looking for ways to circumvent rules and laws, for example rendition and secret off shore prisons and redefining people to place them outside the scope of human rights as if that were possible.

What has changed since 911? I see it as an attempt to change the national consciousness from good guys and bad guys in the world, which is what signing on to the U.N. charter establishes, to simply it's us versus them with no questions of morality needed. You're either with us or against, 911 changed everything.

Why do these people on the right support this? First of all they're entirely wrong since the vast majority of experts agree that torture is ineffective, immoral, illegal and dangerous for future Americans captured and it destroys the essential moral authority that the U.S. needs to project around the world.

I suspect in keeping with their beliefs, the Bushites think they are terrorizing the terrorists as part of a strategy to defeat them, to win the war on terror by fighting fire with fire. That seems patently stupid except that those on the right already believe that capital punishment stops crime and harsh drug policy stops drug use. These beliefs are clearly wrong as well in the face of facts and expert studies and opinions.

Then there is the neocon view that because the U.S. is the sole superpower in the world, it therefore has the right to suspend agreements and act outside the law as it chooses.

It's not unlike God who said thou shalt not kill , then he temporarily suspends the laws by telling Abraham to kill his son. That put theologians into contortions trying to explain the impossible contradiction just like the White House is trying to explain a clearly wrong and immoral view on torture when the U.S. signed on to the U.N. charter protecting the dignity and rights of all humans, without exceptions.

There's always simply just lying too, as in Bush's 'we don't torture' ( at least as we define it)

And why does Canada's conservative goverment support this new attitude about human rights? More of the same traditional right wing thinking, more prisons, longer sentences, the death penalty, harsh interrogations for terrorists, this is the philosophical direction that the right thinks will miraculously achieve law and order.

You simply have to stop calling it torture.

1 comment:

RossK said...

Agreed.

It clearly is a stratergy in which, as long as you can prove (or even 'indicate) fealty you're 'with us'.

How else to explain Mushy?

Or, this guy.

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