Conservatives Live in a Different Moral Universe -- And Here's Why It Matters

Alternet, By Tom Jacobs, Miller-McCune.com. Posted April 25, 2009 (see sig)

Jonathan Haidt is hardly a road-rage kind of guy, but he does get irritated by self-righteous bumper stickers. The soft-spoken psychologist is acutely annoyed by certain smug slogans that adorn the cars of fellow liberals: "Support our troops: Bring them home" and "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

"No conservative reads those bumper stickers and thinks, 'Hmm -- so liberals are patriotic!'" he says, in a sarcastic tone of voice that jarringly contrasts with his usual subdued sincerity. "We liberals are universalists and humanists; it's not part of our morality to highly value nations. So to claim dissent is patriotic -- or that we're supporting the troops, when in fact we're opposing the war -- is disingenuous.

"It just pisses people off."

The University of Virginia scholar views such slogans as clumsy attempts to insist we all share the same values. In his view, these catch phrases are not only insincere -- they're also fundamentally wrong. Liberals and conservatives, he insists, inhabit different moral universes. There is some overlap in belief systems, but huge differences in emphasis.

In a creative attempt to move beyond red-state/blue-state clichés, Haidt has created a framework that codifies mankind's multiplicity of moralities. His outline is simultaneously startling and reassuring -- startling in its stark depiction of our differences, and reassuring in that it brings welcome clarity to an arena where murkiness of motivation often breeds contention.

He views the demonization that has marred American political debate in recent decades as a massive failure in moral imagination. We assume everyone's ethical compass points in the same direction and label those whose views don't align with our sense of right and wrong as either misguided or evil. In fact, he argues, there are multiple due norths.

[…] lengthy six page article

http://www.alternet.org/story/138303/conservatives_live_in_a_different_moral_universe_--_and_here%27s_why_it_matters/?page=entire

I agree. What I have thought would unfold for some time now is that congress will investigate behind closed doors and the Obama Administration will investigate through DOJ or a nonpartisan panel and then both sides will stonewall by saying they can't discuss the investigation either due to classification or not interfering with the investigation. That will keep the so called partisan uproar down and allow all the other vital business to proceed.

As Nation's Mood Lifts, Can Obama Capitalize? (see sig)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042503159.html

Thanks for the Sands link. I hadn't heard it.

Torture Memos vs. Red Cross Report: Prisoners' Recollections Differ from Guidelines (see sig)

http://www.propublica.org/special/torture-memos-vs.-red-cross-report-prisoners-recollections-differ-0424

I never believed the US would turn on its torturers so swiftly

The Guardian Observer, Phillip Sands, April 26, 2009 (see sig)

The world is watching as America attempts to come to terms with the abuse it unleashed in the aftermath of 9/11 and trying to digest the full implications of last week's extraordinary events. With a wide-ranging Spanish criminal investigation into torture at Guantánamo threatening to embarrass the US, Barack Obama decided to declassify legal memos sent under the Bush administration in the hope the country would move on. The opposite has happened. Ever more documents set out in meticulous detail the full extent of the cruelty: who was abused by whom, how they did it and what was done. The truth has been revealed in stark detail, from the number of times waterboarding was used to the legal deliberations that led to it. By Tuesday, President Obama had raised the possibility of US war crimes trials and far-reaching inquiries, developments that were unthinkable a month ago.

And yet perhaps it was inevitable. When Obama took office, evidence of torture was strong. Susan Crawford, the Bush-appointed head of the Guantánamo military commissions, confirmed that the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, dogs and forced shaving on detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani was torture. President Obama's attorney general and the head of the CIA agree that waterboarding is torture. The issue was not how to characterise the acts, but what to do about them. By intervening, Spanish prosecutors seem also to have catalysed debate on what to do about the senior lawyers and officials involved, particularly Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, Jim Haynes, John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Doug Feith, those fast becoming known as the Bush Six.

The situation remains volatile. Ten days ago, Obama assured CIA interrogators that "those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice" would not be prosecuted. Using careful words, he didn't say no to all prosecutions, period. Last Sunday, however, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel did say that. His words provoked a storm. The president promptly overrode him: "With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions," he said, "that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general ... and I don't want to prejudge that." Further investigation is inevitable.

This debate comes five years after the release of a one-page memo written by Jim Haynes, Donald Rumsfeld's lawyer at the US Department of Defence, in November 2002. The memo recommended blanket authorisation for the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, dogs and nudity, in plain violation of international law. It left open the use of waterboarding. This memo caused the torture of Mohammed al-Qahtani. The techniques migrated to Afghanistan and Iraq, notably at Abu Ghraib.

The document was a shocker. It was difficult to understand how the senior lawyers involved could have authorised torture. So I spent 18 months trekking around the US, meeting many of the officials involved. For the most part, these were ordinary, decent people. Some spoke openly and - I thought - honestly. Others plainly didn't. The higher up the political chain I went, the greater the hubris.

[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/26/philippe-sands-torture-usa