{"id":13536,"date":"2007-11-09T12:35:21","date_gmt":"2007-11-09T17:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13536.html"},"modified":"2007-11-09T12:35:21","modified_gmt":"2007-11-09T17:35:21","slug":"torture-as-an-act-of-civil-disobedience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/torture-as-an-act-of-civil-disobedience\/","title":{"rendered":"Torture as an act of civil disobedience?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conservatives have offered a wide variety of inane and offensive arguments in support of torture, but Chuck Colson, the Watergate felon turned prominent Christian-right activist, is the first to characterize torture as a noble act<\/a> of civil disobedience<\/i>. (via Steve M.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Inflicting bodily or psychological harm on a helpless captive would be inconsistent with the Christian understanding of human dignity. But as with all moral obligations, there may be circumstances for exception.<\/p>\n

It is well understood in Christian tradition that while we are supposed to obey the law, there may be times when there is a higher obligation (see Aquinas, Augustine, and Martin Luther King). To rescue a drowning person, a Christian would be justified in disobeying a “no trespassing” sign.<\/p>\n

So it is with torture; if a competent authority honestly believed that this was the only way to get information that might save the lives of thousands, I believe he would be justified.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He didn’t appear to be kidding. Colson, in all sincerity, defended torture by citing Nobel Peace Prize-winner Martin Luther King, Jr., a life-long champion of non-violence and pacifism.<\/p>\n

These may very well be the worst analogies in the history of the world.
\n
\nSteve M. hammered this point home<\/a> nicely.<\/p>\n

The “no trespassing” analogy is merely appalling. Let’s see if I can follow his logic: Torture is OK if<\/i> you have to do it to save a lot<\/i> of people, just as crossing onto somebody’s land against the person’s wishes is OK if<\/i> you have to do it to save one<\/i> person. So the moral evil of torture is erased by the attempt to save a lot<\/i> of lives, and the moral evil of trespassing is erased by the attempt to save one<\/i> life.<\/p>\n

Therefore what? If no lives are in the balance, multiple acts of trespassing are equal to one act of torture? Torturing somebody once is morally equivalent to ignoring “no trespassing” signs repeatedly?<\/p>\n

I think, by that logic, every normally rambunctious kid who ever lived is morally the same as a torturer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I vaguely recall a time — I think it was the past couple of decades — when the right accused the left of embracing moral relativism. Good times, good times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conservatives have offered a wide variety of inane and offensive arguments in support of torture, but Chuck Colson, the Watergate felon turned prominent Christian-right activist, is the first to characterize torture as a noble act of civil disobedience. (via Steve M.) Inflicting bodily or psychological harm on a helpless captive would be inconsistent with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}