It became necessary to destroy the Constitution in order to save it
Everyone claims to care about human rights, but few people care as much as James Taranto, who is willing to do anything to protect them — even crumple them up and stomp all over them. Endorsing the torture of suspected terrorists, Taranto goes beyond the usual "the bastards deserve it argument" to say that opposition to torture "is dangerous not only to terrorism's prospective victims but also to the civil liberties the moralists claim to prize. If there is another attack, does anyone really think we will escape draconian restrictions on our liberties?"
So I guess people who oppose the death penalty should line up suspected criminals and shoot them before one of them commits a crime so horrible that the public demands the institution of the death penalty.
Comments
Forget torture. Why not rain down our entire nuclear arsenal on everything east of Cairo. That's only real defense against a dirty bomb being set off in the U.S.
Posted by: Dashiell | January 5, 2005 6:06 PM
Are you being sarcastic?
Posted by: Jim Treacher | January 5, 2005 7:57 PM
Obviously he's serious. If he was being sarcastic, he would have used the new sarcasm mark (¡).
Posted by: Jesse | January 6, 2005 1:35 AM
Well, that seems like a bad idea, then.
Posted by: Jim Treacher | January 7, 2005 2:54 AM
radosh is right. better that tens, hundreds, or thousands of civvies get slaughtered than risk ONE terrorist getting slapped around.
Posted by: jeff | January 8, 2005 7:37 PM
Did you even read the post, Jeff? If Taranto had simply made the same tired argument you're making -- torture is necessary to save lives -- I wouldn't have bothered to blog about it. I won't even bother to counter it here. I mean, it's not like you don't know that there's no evidence that torture works or that 70 - 90% of the prisoners in Iraq were arrested by mistake anyway. If you want to tear up the Constitution to protect lives, well, that's a intellectually coherent argument anyway. The funny part was wanting to tear up the Constiution to protect the Constitution.
Posted by: radosh | January 8, 2005 9:18 PM
Meanwhile, I've been wondering that all the people who defend torturing of terrorists aren't outraged that Alberto Gonzales is now saying he opposes torture. Shouldn't Jeff and Jim call on Bush to withdraw Gonzales from consideration -- after all, he's risking the life of tens, hundreds, or thousands of civvies.
Or perhaps they think he's, you know, giving false testimony to Congress. Guess he's qualified to be the nation's top lawmaker after all!
Posted by: radosh | January 8, 2005 9:21 PM