the institution of torture
I just got done reading most of the RAWSTORY interview with a former detainee of Guantanamo bay. I can't really say that anything in the account shocked me. We've known about all of this for literally years now.
But whenever I think about things like torture and anything with government or political implications, I try to find an conservative point of view to examine what I'm reading and have it make better sense from their perspective. I know there are people out there who know every bit of information that I know about the torture and abuse of American detainees, and that they still approve of it.
There has to be a reasonable justification for supporting torture. Are conservatives so afraid of being attacked again that they approve of anything that makes them feel powerful enough to bear the burdon of the realisation that America will most likely be attacked one day? Are these things that make them feel better about their position in the world completely arbitrary when considered along with the larger picture, the entire worldview?
I believe conservatives simply feel good about torturing detainees. It raises sentiments of security in knowing that people different than them are feeling pain and suffering, and it doesn't go much deeper than that. They justify their blind hatred and bigotry with stories about bombs in city squares, and how torture is the only way we can find those bombs; this gives their bigotry cover.
Torture has become an institution for the right wing of American politics. It's a right wing tradition, reborn. They want pain and suffering of their perceived enemies (even though this status is questionable among many American detainees) just like how older regimes wanted to see criminals drawn and quartered in public. If you stop torturing detainees, it would be like taking a security blanket away from right wingers.
One day we can only hope torture supporters will see their bloodlust not as the reaction of a rational reaction to an enemy, but for what it really is. The civilised among us will have to excuse them for their additude... they simply got caught up in their fear, their bloodlust, and their emotional and irrational attachment to the institution of torture.
But whenever I think about things like torture and anything with government or political implications, I try to find an conservative point of view to examine what I'm reading and have it make better sense from their perspective. I know there are people out there who know every bit of information that I know about the torture and abuse of American detainees, and that they still approve of it.
There has to be a reasonable justification for supporting torture. Are conservatives so afraid of being attacked again that they approve of anything that makes them feel powerful enough to bear the burdon of the realisation that America will most likely be attacked one day? Are these things that make them feel better about their position in the world completely arbitrary when considered along with the larger picture, the entire worldview?
I believe conservatives simply feel good about torturing detainees. It raises sentiments of security in knowing that people different than them are feeling pain and suffering, and it doesn't go much deeper than that. They justify their blind hatred and bigotry with stories about bombs in city squares, and how torture is the only way we can find those bombs; this gives their bigotry cover.
Torture has become an institution for the right wing of American politics. It's a right wing tradition, reborn. They want pain and suffering of their perceived enemies (even though this status is questionable among many American detainees) just like how older regimes wanted to see criminals drawn and quartered in public. If you stop torturing detainees, it would be like taking a security blanket away from right wingers.
One day we can only hope torture supporters will see their bloodlust not as the reaction of a rational reaction to an enemy, but for what it really is. The civilised among us will have to excuse them for their additude... they simply got caught up in their fear, their bloodlust, and their emotional and irrational attachment to the institution of torture.
posted by Dave @ 5:08 PM
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