Year: 2005

I’m glad NRO’s curmudgeon just linked to an old piece of his on torture. That it was written in November 2001, at the height of our post-9/11 fears, speaks a great deal about the integrity of the argument. Torture, of course, is not restricted to cliches about finger-nails or electrodes. Derbyshire writes of one of the techniques deployed by Communist China:

Ian Buruma gives some similar pen-portraits in his new book about Chinese dissidents. Chia Thye Poh, for example, was kept in solitary confinement for twenty-six years by the Singapore authorities for having resigned his seat in parliament to protest the policies of Lee Kuan Yew. In their attempts to get him to sign a confession that he was a Communist, which he wasn’t, Chia’s jailers inflicted on him such peculiarly modern tortures as forcing him to stand naked in a freezing room with the air-conditioning going full blast, and piping loud Muzak into his cell day and night. Chia never cracked. Why not? asked Buruma, at a meeting with Chia. “He was much too polite to say so, but it was clear my question had baffled him. I wished I hadn’t asked. ‘How could I have signed?’ he said, very softly. ‘It wasn’t true.'”

Those techniques – of freezing or heating detainees into despair or pain or psychological collapse – have now become part of the U.S. government’s armory. This must end. We can win this war without destroying the very civilization we are fighting for. We can win without losing our soul. Any other kind of victory is a euphemism for defeat.

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there.” – Pat Robertson, on a school district that decided to teach science in its science curriculum. Before I get emails from conservatives saying that Robertson represents no one in the Republican coalition, let me remind you that he was one of the religious leaders phoned by Karl Rove to discuss Supreme Court nominees. My rule of thumb is that I will trust the good faith of any Republican politician who is prepared to criticize Robertson publicly. Until then, he’s their problem.

After another brutal slaying of Muslims, the Jordanian public seems to turn against al Qaeda. The one constant in this war is the evil of our enemies – and their stupidity. With any luck, enough Sunni Arabs in Iraq will look into the abyss that Zarqawi offers them, and turn back as well.

BLAIR’S CASE: It would be wonderful if the debate in the U.S. were between a 90 day detention without charge for terror-suspects and a 28-day limit. But one British reader believes that Blair is right, and that the vote yesterday is pure politics:

The strange situation here was Blair had carried the vast majority of public opinion on this issue. Regular polls, discussions and letters backed the 90 day proposal. Since the July attacks Blair had seen a rise in his standing, a strong, firm stance after the atrocities obviously the cause.
Where I disagree with you, is your assessment of the 28 day compromise as ‘sane’. The people who thought Blair was right here had listened to the security services and Met Police Chief Ian Blair. They understood the sheer mountain of work in front of those protecting us. Just off the top of my head, these people are uncovering networks that have computer set-ups with 750 gigabyte memories, and it takes more than a little time for those code crackers to find the keys and such for those sites.
This is the most painstaking, methodical, eye for detail work I can imagine. We can’t be half-arsed about this stuff.
Anti terrorist cop Andy Hayman reckons that alone takes weeks. This is why the majority here saw the news that Blair had lost from a jubilant media, but asked themselves just who exactly had won? MPs here ask why voters are apathetic, then just turn their noses up at their constituents. Make no mistake this wasn’t a victory for the mother of all Parliaments, merely a lynch mob who have been waiting to see Blair fall.
Its sad when personal vendettas and grandstanding trump a nation’s security.

Other British observers I’ve spoken with said that Blair never made a clear, convincing case for the 90 days. Like Bush and Cheney, he simply insisted that he alone knew what was right and necessary. In a democracy, that’s not good enough. With something as fundamental as habeas corpus at stake, the burden of proof must be on the executive.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY II: “I will quote to you (from memory) a talk with a Latin-American revolutionary who told me about torture in Brazil.
I asked: ‘What is wrong with torture?’ and he said:
‘What do you mean? Do you suggest it is all right? Are you justifying torture?’
And I said: ‘On the contrary, I simply ask you if you think that torture is a morally inadmissible monstrosity.’
‘Of course,’ he replied.
‘And so is torture in Cuba?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ he answered, ‘this is another thing. Cuba is a small country under the constant threat of American imperialists. They have to use all means of self-defense, however regrettable.’ Then, I said: ‘Now, you cannot have it both ways. If you believe, as I do, that torture is abominable and inadmissible on moral grounds, it is such, by definition, in all circumstances. If however there are circumstances where it can be tolerated, you can condemn no regime for applying torture, since you assume that there is nothing essentially wrong with torture itself. Either you condemn torture in Cuba in exactly the same way you do for Brazil, or you refrain from condemning the Brazilian police for torturing people. In fact, you cannot condemn torture on political grounds, because in most cases it is perfectly efficient and the torturers get what they want. You can condemn it only on moral grounds and then, necessarily, everywhere in the same way, in Batista’s Cuba, in Castro’s Cuba, in North Vietnam and in South Vietnam.'” – Leszek Kolakowski, the great critic and student of Marxism, from an exchange with leftist E. P. Thompson, in his book, “My Correct Views on Everything.”

A maligned journalist now has another option in her self-defense. She can post one online. Here are Judy Miller’s responses to Keller, Dowd and Calame. (Hat tip: Mediacrity.)

It’s a long essay in the new Weekly Standard, but well worth reading. Authored by Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat (who are friends and former guest-bloggers in this space), the essay is so wide-ranging I’m not going to summarize it. But here’s a proposal I like a lot. It’s to do with taxes. Reihan-Ross raise the idea of reforming the curent system and would

remove all families earning less than $100,000 from the tax rolls. For those who want to see a daring tax reform that leaves an impression in voters’ minds and pocketbooks, this would be an avenue worth exploring.

Recall that the income tax was originally designed as a single-rate tax on a relatively small number of high earners. We still have something like it today, in the form of the alternative minimum tax (AMT), which was designed to ensure that the affluent pay at least some income tax. Bush’s tax commission has called for the abolition of the AMT, which isn’t indexed to inflation and will start biting into middle-class paychecks within the decade. But perhaps the GOP should consider an alternative: Why not reform the AMT and abolish the regular income tax instead?

Michael J. Graetz of Yale Law School, hardly a wild-eyed utopian, has called this the “back to the future” plan. Graetz would raise the AMT exemption to $50,000 for single-earners and $100,000 for joint returns, and impose a single rate of 25 percent on all earnings over those thresholds. To replace the lost revenue, he would also–and this is the controversial part–introduce a consumption tax of 14 percent.

The essay is packed with provocative ideas like these. It grapples with health-care in a way that avoids the pitfalls of socialism but moves us toward a more rational, universal insurance system. It’s also pro-family in a manner that makes a lot of sense to me. We need to support those who are rearing the next generation more effectively than we now do (and I’d include, of course, gay parents in this). Anyway, read the piece. You’ll find plenty to agree and disagree with, but the debate itself is overdue.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY I: “As a student of history and a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, I long have been impressed by the example of George Washington, who was a strong believer in fiscal discipline. In his 1796 farewell address, Washington admonished the nation to avoid ‘not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.’ Americans today would be wise to heed Washington’s timeless wisdom.” – David Walker, Comptroller General of the U.S., in a piece titled, “Spending Is Out Of Control.”

Ramesh elaborates the questions about Catholicism he believes are legitimate in a Senate hearing:

“Would you hesitate to re-affirm Roe and Casey because you would be afraid that your church would deny you communion?” … “No. If I voted to re-affirm Roe, it would be because I believed that it was the correct legal conclusion – because I concluded that the combined force of constitutional provisions and precedent made it so – and not because of any moral views I hold about abortion policy; and I am confident that my church would understand that. Indeed, if I conclude that Roe is correct as a matter of constitutional interpretation, then I would be morally bound to say so. If I pretended that Roe was wrongly decided, while knowing better, I would be guilty of the sin of lying, and would not be able to present myself for communion.’

Here’s the question I’m still wrestling with. If a judge were to say that he supports Roe because he believes that there is a right to privacy in the Constitution and that that right applies to a woman’s ownership of her own body, and thereby the right to abort an unborn child, would that trigger the church hierarchy’s removal of that judge from the communion rail? And how could that threat not affect a judge’s rulings as a matter of fact?

CHURCHES AND THE IRS: A liberal church gets its tax exempt status pulled because of a sermon last October called “If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush.” I’m with the IRS. Now let’s be consistent and start pulling tax exemptions from all churches that conflate their spiritual mission with campaigns for various candidates and parties.

I feel bad even linking. But, well, oh, all right then …

A police outreach to the gay community in the heartland. The times they are a-changin’.

THANKS, AMERICA: The Kurdish region in Iraq now has ads to convey the hope that liberation means. See them here.

A classic.

Sojourners website sets up a way to contact your representatives and Speaker Hastert directly.