Adults are really just large children, they have to touch the stove also to truly understand that to do so causes pain.
There is a Chinese aphorism which goes like this: I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.
My point being that simply telling people something is extremely unlikely to make them truly understand it.

You make MY point very nicely. Did the leadership truly appreciate the ramifications of accepting the presentation? I don't think so. I can't believe any of them had been asked to condone torture before, but I CAN believe they would do everything possible to protect the country, and worry about the consequences later.

The Ivory Tower Brigade can issue all the pronouncements it likes but as you say, experience is understanding.

Here is why I'm not going to believe any smear coming from this administration until verified.

BILL MOYERS: Quoting anonymous administration officials, the TIMES reported that Saddam Hussein had launched a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb using specially designed aluminum tubes…

And there on MEET THE PRESS that same morning was Vice President Cheney.

DICK CHENEY (MEET THE PRESS NBC 9/8/02): There's a story in the NEW YORK TIMES this morning, this is– and I want to attribute this to the TIMES — I don't want to talk about obviously specific intelligence sources, but–

JONATHAN LANDAY: Now, ordinarily information– like the aluminum tubes would– wouldn't appear-it was top secret intelligence, and the Vice President and the National Security Advisor would not be allowed to talk about this on the Sunday talk shows. But, it appeared that morning in the NEW YORK TIMES and, therefore, they were able to talk about it.

DICK CHENEY (MEET THE PRESS NBC 9/8/02): It's now public that in fact he has been seeking to acquire and we have been able to intercept to prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge and the centrifuge is required to take low grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb."

BILL MOYERS: Did you see that performance?

BOB SIMON: I did.

BILL MOYERS: What did you think?

BOB SIMON: I thought it was remarkable.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

BOB SIMON: Remarkable. You leak a story, and then you quote the story. I mean, that's a remarkable thing to do.

You make MY point very nicely. Did the leadership truly appreciate the ramifications of accepting the presentation? I don't think so. I can't believe any of them had been asked to condone torture before, but I CAN believe they would do everything possible to protect the country, and worry about the consequences later.

I don't entirely disagree with you.

However, anyone who thinks that terrorists are a truly existential threat to the USA has such a severe case of cranorectal inversion that they are looking out their own navel.

That they did not fully understand the ramifications of their decisions is not an excuse. It is codified into the law that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

As has already been explained, the US has signed and ratified treaties which forbid the use of torture. If the legislators were ignorant of that fact, something I find impossible to believe anyway, then that still does not excuse their actions.

Furthermore, to a man the legislature of the USA is made up of theists, the overwhelming majority of whom are self professed Christians. It should be patently obvious to any follower of the Christ that He would have condemned the use of torture on one's fellow human beings. After all, it is considered the "ultimate sacrifice" for the Christ to have willingly undergone torture unto death in order to save the souls of humankind.

This dichotomy between the self professed beliefs and the actions of our legislators makes it patently obvious that they are hypocrites of the highest order.

It's not a mere accident that the sin which the Christ most often and vociferously condemned was that of hypocrisy.

As I have just shown, not only are our legislators guilty of knowingly breaking the law, they are also guilty of knowingly violating the precepts of their own, often vociferously professed, code of morality... That of the Christian faith.

That our legislators are hypocrites is totally unsurprising, that they should be such guilty of such incredibly blatant hypocrisy is worthy of a raised eyebrow.

I predict you will not reply.

-- Aycharaych

For someone who thinks so highly of themselves as you do of yourself, one would expect that you would be embarrassed beyond words when you find that I answered your revolting badgering days ago, but you, the badgering fool, overlooked it.

...no doubt Bill Clinton was advising them. Blame it on Bill.

Right?

Sysprog via emptywheel has brought us more excellent research material, this time Sheldon Whitehouse excoriating the Busheviks for their consolidation of power in the Person of the Executive. Autocracy in a word.

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/09/democrats/permalink/0849b9be9bda2c3021021e70286ff87e.html

Whitehouse makes a compelling case.

What's he gonna do about it?

This has been the problem all along. We have had a compelling case against the Busheviks since the issue of the stolen 2000 election first went before the Senate in 2001; a plea was brought before the Senate by members of the House that the Electoral College results be rejected due to voter suppression and fraud in the Florida election returns. A case was made, a very good case, and eloquent pleas were delivered in person and in writing. Not one Senator would agree to take up the case brought before the August Body, not one.

We can prattle all we want about the deals that were made, the comity that was desired, the self-interest that was denied, and so on and so forth, but none of that really matters. What matters is that the members of the August Body aren't willing to do anything -- like stop the Busheviks in their tracks -- to end this nightmare. Nothing, that is, except speechify from time to time. And THAT, I submit, is an institutional failure on a monumental scale.

If any Senator objects to the Autocratizing of the Executive, then put a stop to it. If any Senator objects to giving dictatorial powers to the Executive, then take them the fuck away.

But, no. That's not what happens. Instead, we get florid speech after florid speech, and... then... nothing. Nothing except an endless Republican filibuster of every Democratic measure. "Forcing" Dems to yield to Rs on everything.

The fact that Harry Reid finally -- FINALLY -- summoned up the gumption to keep the Senate in session over the Thanksgiving recess to prevent Bush from appointing more minons to the bench and other posts is taken as a Great Victory! YAY! What took him so long? Why wasn't he doing this from the beginning?

Why aren't Senators blocking appointments every day? Why aren't they refusing to pass Bush-enabling legislation, even to the point of filibustering? Why haven't they been doing this from the get go of this misbegotten regime of blood and terror?

Comity? Or Complicity?

And as for Marbury, overturning that has been a centerpiece of the Autocracy Party for some time now. Funny, nobody noticed. Hm. And when it just so happens that the executive and justice departments collude in a de facto overturning of this ancient ruling, does Senator Whitehouse or anyone else in the Senate DO anything about it but speechify?

No. They do not.

I'll save my cheering for later thank you very much.