Internalizing Torture

I haven't written much lately on this Administration's endorsement of the use of torture. Many of the greater lights in the firmament of the blogoverse have been drawn to gravity of the spate of recently revealed memos. Others have been blinded this week by the last flash of a dying star, make that a b-rated star.

For a good primer on which I speak visit Sisyphus Shrugged's Torture Link Dump.

I find it rather disingenuous that a respected blogger, who is tuned into the right side of the dial, like Eugene Volokh would say:

If I had to think about torture, I would. If I were paid for it, or if I were given a position of official responsibility which requited me to think about it, or if I was teaching a class or writing an article that would be incomplete without it, then I'd buckle down and do it. But none of these applies here. (I do in some measure have to think about this as a citizen, but fortunately that can be a much shallower and briefer thought process than it would take to develop an opinion that I would be comfortable sharing with others, an opinion that will be as thoughtful and defensible as I hope the readers of the blog have generally come to expect from it.)

I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can choose the topics I focus on. The downside of being an amateur (in the best sense of the word, I hope) is that you don't get the perks of a pro. The upside is that you can do what you love (the root "ama-" in "amateur"). I don't love talking about torture, not one little bit.

For me it smacks of the Barbara Bush quote, "Why would I waste my beautiful mind on that."

To be fair, I can understand the reaction to avoid an obvious unpleasant subject. But for chrissake this evil shit is being done in our name with the excuse it will make us more secure.

It's wrong, wrong, and again wrong, this will make us reviled in the world which we are, for better or worse, still a part of...