Stones Cry Out

One thing that comes to mind when issues regarding increased influence by the government in healthcare. Today there are no public hayrides. Why? Because somewhere someone decided they could sue if some rambunctious teenage got hurt during the ride … which mean insurance was required … which meant no more hayrides. How much public interest in health care of this sort not give increased impetus to control risk or other behavior deemed not necessary if that activity has but the smallest negative impact on public health and subsequently public insurance rates. Hayrides are harmless romantic fun that were once common in the New England autumn. Now they are only a private affair hidden from any organized groups that might be subject to suit.

There is a notion among so many today, and my impression is that this idea is found more on the left than the right, that if someone is injured especially badly then there is necessarily another at fault. Actual accidents do not exist in their world. And that it is right to use legal proceedings after any substantial injury to redress the wrong and to locate (or invent) a guilty party and get them to pay. This is, I think, quite a childish impulse. I don’t understand how an adult can act on such an idea in the absence of evidence or any suggestion of malfeasance or malice.

Negligence is often cited as a cause for accidents and used as a proxy for fault. Tiger Woods occasionally misses a nominally routine putt. Jose Calderon has an 2008/9 NBA free shooting percentage of 98.052%. Why not 100%? After all free throws are routine. The point is that humans performing any routine activities will occasionally fail or introduce a mistake. Accidents can occur which are not intentional and are not actionable. All too often an error is cause for suit even when it is an “honest” mistake. An obvious rejoinder is that this is what courts are for, to distinguish between honest mistakes and ones which arise from malice, greed, or other intentional errors. And yes, that is the case. But the courts should not be the place where this issue is explored, but the place where evidence of error is tried.

Health care and any overhauling thereof should not be done lightly.  It should not be rushed through Congress, like, say, the TARP bill was.  This is a big deal.

Well, apparently Obama thinks it’s too big to fail.

President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress are poised to trample Republican opposition to his health care bill with a controversial legislative tactic known as reconciliation.

The fast-track process would protect Obama’s ambitious plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system from a potential GOP filibuster and limit the Republicans’ ability to get concessions. It also would give Democrats far more control over the specifics of the health care legislation.

Under typical Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to advance a bill, but reconciliation would enable Democrats to enact the health care plan with just a simple majority and only 20 hours of debate.

Democrats hold 56 seats in the Senate, and two independents typically vote with the party. Republicans have 41 seats, and there is one vacancy.

Republicans have complained furiously about the prospect of health care reform passing under fast-track rules. But they’re not planning to go down without a fight.

And that’s not the only ill-considered option not being properly considered.

But Democrats aren’t stopping at health care. Obama’s plan to cut private banks and other lending institutions out of the market for student loans would also move on a filibuster-free path.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday that most House and Senate negotiators have resolved most of their differences over a congressional budget blueprint designed to advance Obama’s agenda through Congress. The measure will set the rules on how Congress considers Obama’s agenda for the rest of the year.

Lawmakers are rushing to agree on the budget framework in time to give Obama a victory within his first 100 days in office.

The negotiations have centered on the annual congressional budget resolution, which sets the parameters for the legislation that follows. Congressional votes next week would provide a symbolic victory for Obama’s sweeping agenda to enact a universal health care system, invest in education and clean energy and cut the exploding budget deficit to manageable levels.

Obama marks his 100th day in office on Wednesday.

This is big government run amok.  All Republicans can do at this point is try to get in amendments to ameliorate the damage.  Some Congressman, and many constituents, including those at the recent Tea Parties, complain that far too many legislators didn’t actually read the bill or know what was in it.  And yet they’re going to do it again; make the same mistake twice, very deliberately.

A government big enough to make these sweeping changes in the blink of an eye is big enough to foul it up in a big way.  And there’s a better than even chance it will be fouled up the faster it’s done and the less debate there is.

1. I think Origen noted that feature in Scripture just a few years earlier (that is the idea that there are “blue parakeet verses”, which cause you to stumble so that you might pay closer attention).
2. Faith and unbelief … from a modern Saint.
3. A new novel and the battle between liberal and conservative Catholics.
4. Plans of mice, men, and God.
5. A sticking point in the torture debate.
6. Considering autism … more here. All of this skirts the important question of how to love your neighbor especially when your neighbor is disordered.
7. Those touting the marginal benefits of universal health insurance … are innumerate? (one might also recall that there are 15,000 late term abortions per year of which over half are not for reasons of health of mother or child).
8. Egypt and Darfur.
9. Roman catacombs in Bethlehem.
10. Timing issues at the Globe.
11. Praising that cup of joe.
12. What passes for logic on the left … remains however “high test hokum.”
13. Churches talk on high level backchannels.
14. Two books recommended.
15. Odd phrasing in the context of the flu.
16. Turkey is touted as the prime example of a secular Muslim state … but is there a better example?
17. A beautiful bride … and the meaning of marriage and mortality.

Equality. Liberty. Virtue. These are all features which all citizens of almost every state will agree are good and required for a civil and stable union in some measure. I’ve claimed before that today’s progressive/liberals, libertarians and conservatives differ largely in that the different groups differ in the relative importance they place on these values. That is liberal/progressives value equality the most, libertarians liberty, and conservatives virtue. And it’s not that progressive/liberals find virtue or liberty bad, just that these things are less important than equality and so forth.

What does it mean that one values virtue in a civic sense? There are certainly things it should not mean but often does, that is often this is confused with the idea that particular virtues are required and preeminent. The Greek political thinkers thought that the primary purpose of the state was to create an environment in which the virtues of its citizens would and could be cultivated. Virtue for them was the road to happiness. In our day and age, so many confuse happiness with pleasure and therefore forget the importance of virtue. Now, the Greek city states were small enough that a much more pronounced uniformity of opinion about what constitutes virtue could be established in one community. This helped of course but is not essential.

C.S. Lewis in the The Abolition of Man suggests the notion of a universal sense of right and wrong within all people. Put in the context of virtue, there is a common core notion of what virtues are which all societies and people hold common. Different societies value different virtues with varying gradings and, again at the periphery, some virtues are thought vices and vice-versa, for example modern educators think self-esteem is a virtue and many Christian fathers taught self-esteem a vice. The existence of these differences is however often used mistakenly to suggest that the common notions of virtues in the main are held all cultures and societies.

From the standpoint of political thought and theory however the matter is that a multicultural society, of which most of us belong, can and should foster the development of virtues in its citizens and that this can be done without prejudicing which virtues its citizens value and are being in effect fostered and developed by the state. The primary purpose then of a state is to create an environment in which its citizens can cultivate virtue. So that we can be come better, happier as individuals. As a consequence this requires freedoms (liberty) and equality. But the goal of that liberty (and therefore also where it may and might be restricted) is to foster virtue. Again, where the purpose of equality between citizens is to allow each to cultivate his or her own virtues. Enforcement and encouragement of that equality is not for the purpose of granting equality qua equality to each but to allow each full opportunities to cultivate individual virtue.

I brought this thought up in a comment on Mark’s post on torture; it’s fine to be against torture, but what do you consider torture?  John McCain, having endured the Hanoi Hilton, might have one definition.  Abu Zubaydah’s definition is to be in a cell with a stinging insect.  What about tickle torture?

Danny Carlton presents some food for thought on this subject.  I’m open to your comments on this because this really made me stop and think.

Waterboarding does no permanent, physical damage. It makes one think they are drowning, which I would imagine is an incredibly unpleasant feeling. Another unpleasant feeling–the fear that your children will be taken away from you, and you’ll never see them again. This is done daily across the US by overzealous social workers attempting to force "confessions" from parents suspected of abuse or neglect. Given the choice I think I’d prefer waterboarding.

The logic behind the Fifth Amendment is that when faced with fear, a person may very well lie about their guilt or innocence choosing imprisonment over torture or death. The result is not the truth or justice. But when the goal isn’t a guilty verdict but information needed to save lives the equation changes.

The question then becomes, is it fair or just to put a person through a mentally unpleasant event in order to extract information which can save lives? Ironically those who scream loudest against waterboarding would be those most adamantly in favor of allowing social workers unfettered power in using just as merciless and cruel techniques against parents suspected of abuse or neglect, most often based solely on an anonymous tip.

Whether we as a "civilized society" can tolerate torture has been answered by how we allow social workers and police to use mental torture on those suspected of a crime. Since waterboarding results in no actual physical harm to the person the difference then is whether we will tolerate what we allow on US citizens barely suspected of a crime to be used on known terrorists who have information that could save lives. 

Why is this even a debate?

Is torture wrong?  Seems pretty clear cut that Americans believe it is, which is good to hear.  But those on the Left berating the Bush administration then go beyond the poll results and say that Americans are against waterboarding specifically.  No, they said they were against torture, and again, it all depends on what you mean by that. 

Are you against putting a caterpillar into Zubaydah’s cell and telling him it’s a wasp?  Or are you against hanging someone by meat hooks for 3 days?  Is there a difference in those techniques?  I think there is.  Are they both torture?  Depends on your definition, I suppose.

What’s your definition, and what is it based on?

Take two similar stories and try to figure out how the media will cover each.  With a hat tip to Newsbusters, here are the two stories:

1. A former Catholic priest comes forward Monday (4/20/09) to claim that another priest abused him as a teenager nearly 30 years ago. (The accused priest has no other similar public complaints and denies the allegations against him.)

2. A former school teacher was sentenced Wednesday (4/22/09) after pleading no contest to eight felony counts, including having sex with two girls under the age of 16. The man "admitted to having intercourse with the girls, performing oral sex with the teens and taking extremely explicit nude photographs of his victims — including pictures of him with one of the girls – before sending the images over the Internet."

OK, they’re not entirely equivalent.  The priest story is from 3 decades ago and the teacher story is from this month.  OK, and the priest denies the allegations while the teacher is being sentenced.  So given that, what was the disparity in coverage?

NewsBusters answers:

Now it’s quiz time! To which story did the Los Angeles Times devote two generous color photos and a 640-word article? Which story did the Times totally ignore?

If you’ve been a close follower of this issue here at NewsBusters, you already know the answer. The Times loudly trumpeted the case of the Catholic priests, even though the original story was reported three years ago (!). Meanwhile, it totally ignored the story of the teacher (Contra Costa Times, 4/23/09; Long Beach Press-Telegram, 11/5/08).

In addition, at Google news, the story of the priests returns "about 128" results. The story of the teacher? One.

We’ll say it again: It seems the most important element to the Times when reporting the awful abuse of children is whether the words "priest," "bishop," or "Cardinal" is in someone’s job title.

Given the Google results, it’s not just the Times that has this ailment.  It’s almost journalists have some blind spot when covering negative stories on government schools and / or a hot spot when it comes to negative stories regarding religion in general and Christianity in particular. 

I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.

1. Well, if you think the US press is wildly inaccurate, we’re not alone.
2. That seems impractical.
3. On health care.
4. On Mr Brown’s book.
5. The fate of an ordinary Obama supporter.
6. Will the Obama administration, the Press, and Congress manage to push the fiction that the “torture” imbroglio was not bi-partisan?
7. Another day, another broken campaign promise … a pattern emerges?
8. Politics, faith and wandering.
9. Ghandi’s gun, heh.
10. Of knowledge and myth.
11. Vermin or ermin?
12. Doubt and Christ.
13. Stop chasing happiness? Only a problem, I think, if you have a modern shallow understanding of the word happiness.
14. Of horological artisans and their work.
15. Piracy as political AIDS.
16. Fascism today.
17. Men and the wind.
18. Why no news stories?
19. Tales from a tea party.

Well, in the light of the fact that it’s been touted that “conservatives” have abandoned their defense of high culture. I’ll freely admit that I have not. Friday night my beloved, who coincidentally is also my wife 😉 , and I attended the CSO for a concert conducted by Bernard Haitink. I was surprised this year, for I don’t recall Mr Haitink having such trouble getting around. He used a cane to assist his walking and stood/sat/leaned on a edge of an elevated chair while conducting. I have to admit his mastery of the orchestra and his use of subtle controlled gesture to get his meaning across was a wonder to behold.

Three peices were performed, none of which I’d ever heard earlier. They were Max Webern’s Im Sommerwind (In the Summer Wind), Gustov Mahler’s Ruckert Lieder, and Franz Schuberts 9th Symphony (the Great). I’d like to offer a few remarks on the short Mahler songs. They were five Ruckert poems set to music sung by Mezzo Soprano Christianne Stotijn. Ms Stotijn sang beautifully, and my only critique might be that I thought she needed sing a little more strongly to counterbalance the orchestra better. Of these poems, the fourth was a simple love poem which Mahler dedicated to his new bride. It is simple but poignant.

Liebst du um Schonheit (If you love for beauty)
(translation from program notes)

If you love for beauty,
then do not love me!
Love the sun,
for he has golden hair.

If you love for youth,
then do not love me!
Love the spring,
which is young every year.

If you love for money,
then do not love me!
Love a mermaid,
for she has many find pearls.

If you love for love,
then yes, do love me!
Love me forever,
I’ll love you evermore.

If you love baseball and you love God, or if you just love baseball or just love God, you have to read a great post at Mere Comments  by  Anthony Esolen on the historically amazing St. Louis first baseman, Albert Pujols.  A sampling:

I caught Albert saying that he did not want to be remembered as a baseball hero. . What he did want to be remembered as, I’ll tell you in a minute.  But first let me affirm that Albert Pujols is going to retire as either the greatest or the second greatest (to Lou Gehrig) first baseman ever to play the game.  If he retired tomorrow, he’d be in the top five or six, easy.  The man is not only a hitting machine.  He is intensely focused on whatever he can do to help his team win a game. 

It’s what moves his heart that interests me.  He said to the SI reporter, “I only want to be remembered as a man who loved the Lord.”  That is how he talks, when he talks.  And it occurs to me that even if you considered it only as a social phenomenon, the love of Christ — Christ’s love for us, and our love for Him — is the most remarkable thing in the history of the world. 

There’s much more.  Read it.  Trust me on this one.

Kevin Roose, student at the ivy league and liberal-leaning Brown University in Providence, RI, decided to go "undercover" at a religious conservative school and write about his observations.  And what more religiously conservative than Liberty University, founded by none other than Jerry Falwell.

To Roose’s credit, it was not his intent to take the path of least resistance.

"As a responsible American citizen, I couldn’t just ignore the fact that there are a lot of Christian college students out there," said Roose, 21, now a Brown senior. "If I wanted my education to be well-rounded, I had to branch out and include these people that I just really had no exposure to."

[…]

He was determined to not mock the school, thinking it would be too easy — and unfair. He aimed to immerse himself in the culture, examine what conservative Christians believe and see if he could find some common ground. He had less weighty questions too: How did they spend Friday nights? Did they use Facebook? Did they go on dates? Did they watch "Gossip Girl?"

I would encourage you to read the whole article.  He seems to have been generally fair about the whole thing, a feeling that Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. shares.  He even got an interview, while still "undercover", with the elder Falwell himself.

And once he got to know the people, and what they really thought and believed, there were some changes he noticed in himself.  He didn’t necessarily agree with them politically, but…

Roose said his Liberty experience transformed him in surprising ways.

When he first returned to Brown, he’d be shocked by the sight of a gay couple holding hands — then be shocked at his own reaction. He remains stridently opposed to Falwell’s worldview, but he also came to understand Falwell’s appeal.

Once ambivalent about faith, Roose now prays to God regularly — for his own well-being and on behalf of others. He said he owns several translations of the Bible and has recently been rereading meditations from the letters of John on using love and compassion to solve cultural conflicts.

He’s even considering joining a church.

Not the outcome one would expect if Liberty was rife with homophobic, intolerant ignoramuses.  In fact, the article notes that one "aggressively anti-gay" student was an "outcast on the hall, not a role model". 

I imagine this would be an interesting read.  Amazon is selling it, and I found a review from Publisher’s Weekly on it with this odd line:

He trains himself to control his foul language and even begins to pray and study the Bible regularly, much to the bewilderment of his liberal Quaker parents.

Is it bewildering to his liberal Quaker parents that he would pray and study the Bible?  Or bewildering to them that prayer and Bible study would be found at Liberty University?  Either of those option seems strangely close-minded.  There may be another, but I’m hard-pressed to figure it out.

Roose has a blog on the Amazon site and I peeked at some of the entries.  Most had to deal with his book tour and a giveaway promotion, but this entry written at Easter, entitled "Why you need to know the Bible (even if you’re an atheist)" was another example of how his time at Liberty had affected him. 

Liberty University could possibly be termed the capitol of the Religious Right, and, as I said, given what you hear from media and pundits, you’d not expect this sort of outcome.  And yet an open-minded student walks in and comes out with a deeper appreciation for God and His Word.  The rest of the liberal punditry would do well to figure out why they’re stereotype is so wrong.

Okay, today’s lesson is to test how well you’ve been paying attention. Listed below are gaffes uttered by a prominent politician. Your task is to choose whether the gaffe was committed by: a) George W. Bush, b) Sarah Palin, or c) Joe the Plumber (no, he’s not a politician, but he’s been in the political limelight).

Good luck.

Our person in question:

1. Made the claim that the 1908 Model T had better fuel efficiency than a typical 2008 SUV.
2. Repeatedly pronounced the word Orion as “OAR-ee-on”.
3. Referred to Great Britain as England.
4. Referred to the “Austrian” language.
5. Thought that the nation of Turkey is older than the U.S.

Well, how’d you do? Truth be told, this was a trick quiz. Each gaffe listed above was committed by our own President Barack Obama*. While no one is immune from making minor goofs, I have to wonder, how would the media have treated these slip-ups had they been committed by Bush?

* HT: (HotAir) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

1. Mr Obama the bigot? Well, yes but he’s a hopey-changey bigot and that makes all the difference, just like Mr Clinton the sexist was a sexist of the right sort so it didn’t matter.
2. That little universe.
3. Debates and changes of perception.
4. The big race Sunday. Three background stories, one, two, and three. I find that of my purchased recordings of classics, the L-B-L tops the list which means by some measure it is my favorite of the classics to watch.
5. A interesting new website noted.
6. A film noted. Another one here.
7. Considering public education.
8. A new Philokalia translation? And a note “reading is not practice.” … Rats. 😉
9. Pakistan and the Taliban.
10. A Orthodox response to a Lutheran question.
11. Ms Pelosi and the waterboarding issue.
12. Dya think?
13. That “stupid book” as an opportunity.
14. The real villain behind WWII … and he got away with it.
15. More innumeracy in the White House.
16. Low-brow? Well, I guess I’ll have to blog about my symphony experiences more often.
17. UPS and modeling faith.
18. It’s not the thought that counts.
19. God and the quantum universe.

One point here I’d like to make clear. I am firmly against institutional support for torture. I have no qualms stating that and think that torture at best should have institutional guards against its use. It is not clear that it is ever necessary to use it and there are reasons not to. However, I don’t think the utilitarian case can be effectively made against it, that is, that I think the historical record clearly shows that torture can be used to extract information. Blog neighbor Mr Kuznicki accuses me of not carefully reading his point of view on torture when I describe it as “ineffective”. His actual words (from a later post):

Along the way, Dr. Arrigo also supports the independent argument that I’ve been making, namely that torture tends to reveal a great deal more false but convincing information in addition to whatever truth happens to come out, and that, for this reason, it’s a bad informational bargain. [note: emphasis mine]

That’s a bit more nuanced objection than one normally finds, my characterization as “ineffective” is wrong where “a bad informational bargain”, oh no that’s just way way different. A complete misreading … or not. For to me that reads a lot like “ineffective”, doesn’t it? Alas, I’m a little unclear on the difference.

There are remain two problems here. One is that resistance movements in general have always reacted to capture of one of their members in a regime in which torture is utilized by quickly moving safehouses and scrubbing all contact with the captured member. Why? The most likely reason they do that is experience in the organization shows that if they don’t move quickly the captured person will “break” under “enhanced interrogation” and they and those to whom he/she was in contact are now at extreme risk. As a odd side note, I’d add that a book The Quiller Memorandum from my childhood, err, mispent youth of cold-war spy vs spy genre (except agent was deemed “reliable under torture” instead of “licensed to kill”) was quite interesting and psychological was quite good even if the later books in the series suffered for moving to the action side and away from the thoughtful end of the storyline arc. The point is if it was true that torture was so bad at giving information then such organizations, which do learn from experience, would stop moving after capture. They didn’t so it seems highly probable that torture from an experimental viewpoint on the victims side … works. So, to put it bluntly: If you think torture is ineffective, why do organizations when facing an opponent who uses torture in an assymmetric struggle always have to quickly move to cut ties and move safehouses when someone is being tortured and interrogated if the claim (of its bad information content) is true?

Why is that? Well, here is my guess. The problem located likely at the the phrase supplied by Mr Kuznicki, that is “bad information.” Almost all information from intelligence sources in a conflict are “bad” in the same way that confessions under duress are. The signal to noise ratio is horrible in all but ideal situations … and ideal situations are very very rare. The best information in a semi-static situation is obtained by a good cultivated relationship with a snitch, just as was found to be the case in Iraq. But from an intelligence gathering point of view, most of the intelligence gained is bad. This, in the crime fighting genre, leads to the “chasing down leads” side of the equation. Snitches, double agents, satellites, drones, phone taps, cell phone monitoring, radio spectrum analysis, internet/switch monitoring, bribed, interrogation, and “enhanced interrogation” are all bad sources of intelligence when you get down to it. The signal to noise ratio of all of these methods is horrible. Correlation between intelligence leads to higher probability of fact. In the absence of good leads, agents and people chase down every available lead, again from the crime drama world … leads have to be chased down with footwork. The point being while torture is indeed “bad information.” The problem real problem arises that so are all the other sources of information. When all information is bad, more bad information which can lead to correlation with other information is in itself entirely useless. When the gestapo or whatever agency got 75 names from torture. They chased down all those leads. Perhaps many were bad. But they had resources and the time and if 5 of the 75 led to a little evidence then they have 5 more people with which to have an enhanced chat. And that led to more names that lead to further connections. That was worth the payoff (for them).

There is another issue regarding torture I’d raised years ago which is the culturally relative problem in defining torture. The colonial era trans-Atlantic voyage, not to speak of the Darwin/Cook trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic voyages, today would be regard as cruel and inhumane punishment. The quantity of pain regularly indured by NFL, professional cyclists, and many other professional atheletes is astounding to the uninitiated and likely exceeds that delivered to those under many forms of “enhanced interrogation.” The sleep deprivation noted in some of the accounts compare that to the Shackleton’s amazing journey or those who race sailboats around the world and around the horn. Read the beginning of this book (The Soul Of A New Machine) for the geek variant on sleep deprivation. There is an old joke which goes something like this.

Joe Frazier is in a bar drinking and one surly drunk stumbles up to him and starts swearing about the money he lost betting on him. The drunk is ignored by Joe which just bugs the drunk and spurs him to exclaim how he’s going to haul off and wing Joe but good. Joe finally ever so slowly turns to him and says, “If you hit me, and I happen to find out about it ….. “

The point is what is torture to one person in one time and era is making an ordinary living to another.

1. Linking to links.
2. Some thoughts on torture.
3. Beauty and nature.
4. Profit in the business world (re)considered.
5. Technology?
6. Boris?
7. Dork?
8. On the Caprica pilot.
9. Scent.
10. Estimating neuron counts in the beltway.
11. Upheaval?
12. Or is it time to close the schools?
13. Changes at First Things.
14. The Ikon screen or Iconostasis considered.
15. Hope and change apparently does not include more honesty in government, less?
16. Being in the right place at the right time.
17. An amateur rides the Huy.
18. Pals.

Torture seems to the be the hot topic of discussion today.

• Ms McArdle offers an interesting alternative way to object to the notion torture even granting its effectiveness.
• Mr Kuznicki continues to hold on the notion, which seems more and more likely to be incorrect, that torture is actually ineffective.
• And … Mr Fernandez points out a big reason why it is likely that torture works and that those who think it isn’t actually effective live in ivory towers wearing rose tinted glasses. It has to effects, it can extract information and it can terrorize a population. Both work, i.e., torture can get information and can terrorize a population.

Torture is almost certainly effective. To isolate the one of the points Mr Fernandez raises:

But I didn’t need Mr. Cheney to tell me that. When I ran safehouses in the anti-Marcos days the first order of business whenever a cell member was captured by the police was to alert the surviving members, move the safehouse and destroy all links to the captured person. That’s because everyone knew that there was a great probability that the captive would talk under duress, however great his bravery and resistance. Nobody I know, or have heard of who has had experience in real-life situations has ever said, “our cell should continue as usual and the safehouse should remain open, despite the fact that one of our own is being tortured by the secret police, because I read in the New York Times that coercion never works.” The probability is that torture works and for that reason its use constitutes a moral dilemma; and the reason why Jacoby believes he is expressing a noble sentiment when he forswears it even as “a last and desperate option” in the War on Terror.

This is not a isolated reaction of a resistance movement in the Philippines … resistance in France in WWII and elsewhere in modern and ancient eras had to react quickly after one of their companions was captured. Why? Because under torture, the threat that the person held would talk was more likely than not. Mr Kuznicki would have it that the notion that the gestapo and/or the Marcos regime might extract under duress valuable information is not likely. He would not (apparently) “alert the surviving members, move the safehouse and destroy all links to the captured person”. Doing those things takes effort and entails risk. According to the “torture doesn’t work” theory that would be counter-productive, expensive, and risky. According, alas, to the real world … it may be expensive and risky … but it is also necessary. And the reason why it is necessary is the erroneous assumption that torture doesn’t work. Torture it seems in the real world, doesn’t always work … but very often does.

However that being said, Ms McArdle’s proposed argument has merit. We are not and have not been a people that condones torture. My contention is that torture and methods of torture should be known and understood by our state agents. But that when and if they use it, they should understand that it is illegal. We ask our soldiers to lay their lives down for the benefit of their country. The existence of effective torture techniques means that we may also ask our operatives and agents to lay down their career and possibly their freedom and good name for the benefit of the country. To put in in the parlance of popular theater, Mr Baur may use torture (effectively even) to save (many?) American lives … but in the aftermath he should go to jail for it … absent a (rare) Presidential pardon. We should remain a people and an nation that never systematically employs torture as a method. It may be that making it illegal is a way to do that. It may also be that there are other, just as effective ways of doing that.

I am no lawyer and I have no idea how the law stood and the law stands now. Apparently waterboarding and similar techniques as were used recently has been used on occaission as a method of extracting information in times of need for over 50 years by our country. If Mr Bush and Mr Cheney and their administration is to be now tried for the methods they employed should not the previous 6-8 administrations be vetted and tried too?