Legal= right. Say what?

Ah, yes, we'll sit in our ivory towers and talk about our pet issues, and ignore those that are not convenient to talk about.

Just as long as we can defend it because it's legal.

Your attempt to hijack the subject by equating it to abortion is duly noted.

No one here is saying that torture is reprehensible only because it's illegal, no matter how much you try to pretend this. People find torture morally repugnant, that's why it's illegal.

Fortunately, most of the country agrees that abortion is not immoral, and therefore it's legal. I understand that there are people who disagree, but you're a minority and you don't get to tell the rest of us how to live.

Torture is neither. It's immoral, illegal, and a majority agree on both those counts. The only question at all at this point is whether we're going to let people get away with it.

Obama has been getting a lotta bad press about refusing to prosecute CIA operatives who engaged in torture under President George chickenhaWk Bush.

Barack Obama has no authority to prosecute anyone, that's up to the justice dept.

I think you're a day or two behind on the news, since Obama has now said pretty much that verbatim, and the Attorney General is reportedly looking into prosecutions.

By the way, the defense of torture you lay out is alarmingly close to the infamous "I was following orders" defense that we decided long ago wasn't much of a defense at all.

Torture of the innocent is always wrong. Torture of the vile murderers of women and children in order to stop their crimes is more than justified. Moral judgements should be made based upon our treatment of and protection of the innocent. Dims are unable to understand that there is a difference.

Do you actually not understand that people being tortured were not convicted of anything? That this is one of the biggest problems, that of torturing people because you think maybe they're guilty of something?

Or are you proposing only torturing those convicted of a crime already? Taking those who have been judged guilty and subjecting them to torture? In which case it's an argument about cruel and unusual punishment which is another story entirely.

Do you also not understand that this is exactly how the terrorists justify their acts, with statements like yours about "Oh, the normal morals don't apply when you're dealing with (infidels, bad people, fill in the blank).

No I don't suppose you do. But hey, your use of a juvenile attempt at a slur in spelling the first three letters of "Democrat" in some silly way pretty much made your case, who can argue with that.

Strange logic. In any case, nope, not true. The majority of the country thinks that abortion should not be illegal, because they think that it's not immoral, the way that murder or torture is, or the way that you think it is.

The information I'm talking about comes from polling about that topic, not from simply observing the fact that people happen to obey the law set by the supreme court. Which would have been a particularly strange idea if that's what I had meant. "Well, people think abortion should be illegal, but it's not, so therefore they seem to think it should be legal. Only because it is"

Sorry, I think only the religiously-inspired can think in that circuitiously strange way ;)

Not so strange Bill, remember,the country was divided 50-50 concerning abortion until Wade vs Roe. It was the Court's decision that changed peoples thinking. It is always easier to put the blame on someone else.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

It's a logical fallacy. One you've fallen *plop* right into with that paragraph.

You're far too reasonable for a religious fanatic though, I mean just in your tone. You're going to give them a bad name if you don't watch it.

I think I have the solution to this debate. While I myself can't imagine what's confusing about "I was just following orders" being a fairly, not to mention famously, discredited defense, there's a way this can be handled that would avoid the whole issue of prosecuting people for something that the same government that's prosecuting them gave them the orders to do.

Just prosecute the ones who gave the orders.

Skip the rest, and go right to to the top.

Problem solved.

There's nowhere upward to go, from there. Well, for all practical purposes. If anyone thinks that the "God told me to do it" defense is going to get very far, good luck with that one, it gets people convicted every day.

Sigh. I suppose you're right.

I wasn't altogether serious, but I gather that you gathered that.

Who knows, maybe answering to one's creator is where the final justice will be done, as the religious among us seem to think.

Of course, in our case that would be KV.

I'd answer to him any day.

Time for bed now. Good work.

Camille Paglia will gloat that Barton really showed that wimpy academic a thing or two. Take it to the bank. It'll be in her next column. Anyone care to bet?

I would be willing to bet on that one but only with you, not against you. That's exactly the kind of thing she would do, you nailed it.

Funny, there are no rightists on this thread

Not one single rightist has spoken up in defense - *or* condemnation of Barton.

Just wait, Camille Paglia will make up for all of them by doing just what Susan above predicted. Then all the right wingers will defend her as the only "liberal" who dares to speak the truth about the Barton exhange.

Paglia, Salon's own Joe Barton. How proud Salon must be.

That's exactly what it looked like to me.