Republicans against torture

I pointed out that many of his arguments are the same case I would make against capital punishment.

“mad rush to look tougher on terrorists than the other guy”

The early pullout from the ICC;Guantanamo, and the Supreme Court’s blistering repudiation of a general administration policy;the public repudiation of the Geneva Convention by Rumsfeld and the attempt to provide the legal justification for torture, in the Gonzalez memo;the accellerating number of convictions of soldiers in charge of prisoners ar several locations…do I need to list the entire history?

Umm, where is Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and what is his status?

I am supposed to see this as an isolated publicity stunt, arisen out of a party (this was Congress, not the WH, and look at the sponsorship) with a previously unblemished record? There is not a history here?

Does it really serve the interests of human rights to praise this small isolated act of people who still support the administration and party with such a track record?

Note the “retroactive” part of the rider and ask why it is in there.

More to the point, what will Sebastian do once this passes as it probably will?
Will the scales finally drop from his eyes as he sees these people for what they are, or will he come up with yet more excuses?
I mean, this is the party of Abu Ghraib, of the Patriot Act, of Guantanamo, of legal reasoning about how to defend torture in a court of law, of prisoners hidden from the Red Cross (for reasons that have still not been explained); it’s not like we don’t know what these guys are like, it’s not like they haven’t done this before

As far as I’m concerned, this is Sebastian trying to put on the mantle of being a good guy, but not actually giving a damn about the issue. At this stage of the game, if you support Bush’s return in 2004, you are on the side of this sort of behavior, full stop. I mean, come on, if you HONESTLY care about this issue, how can you POSSIBLY support a Bush re-election, regardless of your feelings about Kerry’s tax ideas, stance on health-care and so on?

Maynard Handley,

That is actually one of the reasons I seriously doubt I will be voting for Bush.

But can you do me a favor? Can you limit the nasty attacks on the morality of my fellow Republicans who disapprove of such measures to a minimum?

I am a weak man and I don’t want to back slide and vote for a torturer out of petty spite.

I wonder what those folks who feel torture alone justifies voting against Bush feel about Thomas Frank and Kansas?

I wonder how they became so certain life doesn’t begin at 5 1/2 months that they can ridicule pro-life Kansas voters for voting against their ‘economic self interests’?

The responsibility of a party member for the acts of his leaders, or a citizen in a democracy for the acts of her government, is an issue I have been wrestling with since the Vietnam War.

On the one hand, to view citizenship and civic resposibility as beginning and ending at the voting booth is unacceptable. To say people are sheep or children, easily manipulated by leaders, crowds, and propaganda is very dangerous and irresponsible.

On the other hand, as a quick example sincerely not meant to violate Godwin, I look at an average German citizen of 1935 and that same person in 1955 and have difficulty understanding the change. I do not think the 1955 burgher was a closet Nazi, and recognize the consensus (or convenient fiction?) that we did not hold him responsible.

If I have taken a position relative to an entire party, it does not reflect a moral certitude or superiority, but simply an attempted pragmatic tactic. Which like many such tactics, is partly unjust, and possibly counterproductive.

So many qualifications and doubts, gotta be a lefty of some sort.

Randolph Fritz,

JC. Stalin? Stalin?

However desirable or undesirable the dismantling of the welfare state in the US and the banning of abortion htf can you compare that to what Stalin did?

Is someone using Randolph Fritz’s good name and reputation for reasonableness to bait me?

I mean what is going on?

And the analogy is that Bush is as bad as Stalin because everything he does is awful but he says the right things? Or did I connect the dots improperly?

bigmacattack, I am thinking not of the “dismantling of the welfare state in the US and the banning of abortion”, but of the legalization, however indirect, of torture. I am thinking of Abu Ghraib. I am thinking of the disappeared, both here and in Iraq. I am thinking, also, of the contempt for democracy the current Republican leadership seems to display, and of their contempt for conservative values: in their hands the government gets ever larger and ever more invasive. Then we have their fiscal policy: borrow and spend, going back over 20 years–the largest peacetime expansion of the national debt in US history was led by the Reagan administration.

And, no, it doesn’t match Stalin’s horrors. What I am struck by, though, is the way Republicans have stuck by their leadership, even as it has turned against everything they stand for. And now, torture. Torture! How long do we wait for the honest conservatives and Republicans to recoil in disgust? Take the left’s history with Stalin as a warning: the time to recoil in disgust is before the purges, before the Gulags. Before Abu Ghraib. Before “extraordinary rendition” becomes law. Believe me, it can get worse. It can get much worse.

Oh, give me a break. the conflation of Bush with Stalin is just that, a conflation; there is no personal or historical parallel between the two. As much as I loathe Bush, he has yet to send millions of US citizens to die in Alaska in work camps.

However, what strikes me as undeniably true is that, should you continue to support a politician or party *knowing* what their policies are and their actions have been, then you also hold moral responsibility for what that person has done or will do. One of the major planks of democracy is collective responsibility for the actions of society. Otherwise,what’s the point in having a vote at all?

Maynard Handley,

At least I have the option.

If that is the case Randolph Fritz could and should have used a different analogy. An analogy that wasn’t so needlessly emotive. As is, instead of making his point, his analogy distracts from his point.

As this thread very clearly shows.

Sandriana, bigmacattack, the conflation of Bush and Stalin is lainly a straw man. Indeed Randolph Fritz explicitly disavows the claim you criticize — that Bush is as bad as Stalin. They are also explicitly being charitable towards those who support Bush.

The simple point is that people who in their own sphere would have been against all the bad things Stalin did continued to support him long after it became obvious that he was in fact a monster. The implication is that with this failure of critical faculties disappears an important check on the exercise of power. The suggestion that the modern Republican party bears little relation to the party of Eisenhower or Lincoln seems unarguable and is indeed documented.

The party is protectionist, free spending, centralising, interventionist and intrusive in society.

The suggestion that Kerry will spend more than Bush is based on what? The record of Bill Clinton? Carter? This non-evidence based approach is exactly the sort of prejudiced feeling Maynard and randolph are talking about.

There must be a better defense of Bush than “he’s not as bad as Stalin”.

Perhaps Randolph is but Maynard clearly is not. He clearly states that if Sebastian condemn’s the torture but votes for Bush he is supporting torture while trying to cover himself with the mantle of a good guy.

Damn straight that’s what I’m saying. Your argument against that seems to be, “Yeah well at least Bush won’t raise my taxes”.

Look, if your personal opinion is that lower taxes is something you value as more important than the federal government’s attitude towards torture (let’s put aside the fact that Bush’s lower taxes are all an illusion that’s going to crumble pretty soon anyway), look that’s your choice, and you have to live what that; but at least have the guts to outright say it.

I will lay out the argument very simply for you:
* This present administration has indicated repeatedly that it has no moral qualms about torture, to the maximum extent it can get away with it
* If they stay in power, they will undoubtedly use their re-election as an affirmation of the past four years, and will be even more aggressive in employing torture, no habeas corpus, secret laws, and whatever else they can get away with
* Therefore if you help them into power, you are complicit with this future behavior.

I don’t care about your attitude towards the candidates vis a vis taxes, gay marriage, the environment or anything else. The point is; by voting for Bush, you are making a choice — you are saying this bundle of other issues is more important than the moral issue of torture. At that point, OF COURSE you lose the right to claim the moral high ground for yourself as this big anti-torture advocate.

Maynard Handley,

My actual argument was

‘I am allowed to point out that millions of ordinary Republicans will be voting for Bush because they very reasonably believe Kerry will spend even more. Because they value the lives of millions of unborn children. Because being good men, who trust in their good government at home, they cannot make the connection between
removing the constraints of that government abroad, to deal with a threat that frightens them, and actions that they find genuinely despicable. When narcissists or the just plain nasty denounce those decent people as immoral, expect me to be offended.’

How you get –

‘Damn straight that’s what I’m saying. Your argument against that seems to be, “Yeah well at least Bush won’t raise my taxes”.’

from that is beyond me.

‘I don’t care about your attitude towards the candidates vis a vis taxes, gay marriage, the environment or anything else. The point is; by voting for Bush, you are making a choice —- you are saying this bundle of other issues is more important than the moral issue of torture.’

Yes quite. That person might be saying the lives of millions of unborn children are more important than your fantasies regarding Bush and torture.

(Do try and remember that one of the reasons I am not voting for Bush is torture.)

I grow bored.

Continue chanting do you agree with my point of view or are you so immoral you lust for the blood of innocents.

Without my input.

It’s always comforting, when people are more outraged by outrageously hyperbolic parallels than by the actual existence of hundreds of people being detained with no charges, illegal detention camps, torture, abuses, violations, ex-Baathists and Chalabi’s cousins ruling Iraq, and the talebans back in charge in Afghanistan, only now they’re your friends. Priorities, priorities. You don’t disrespect the Great Leader, that’s what matters most.

It is perfectly all right to be horrified by all sorts of things. But not all things that horrify you are worthy of being labeled Stalinesque.