Fido the Yak

Fareed Zakaria explains why torture is stupid. What further explanation was needed? Why beat a dead horse? I don't know. Ask Dick Cheney. He's the Vice President of the United States, and he wants to torture people.

What's the difference between wanting to torture people and wanting to preserve legal loopholes, ambiguities and exceptions that have demonstrably led to people being tortured? The former is merely vicious, the latter is both vicious and cowardly. Is there any other difference that matters? Ask Dick Cheney, and while you're at it ask him how it is that torture has been committed under his watch.

Is it a bad thing to have government documents in the public domain, documents like the Army Field Manual, the United States Code of Laws (esp. Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 113c), or the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution? Would we be better off if the English Bill of Rights of 1689 had never been made public? What if the first rule of the Code of Hammurabi had been the first rule of Fight Club? What if Moses had been told to keep it on the down low? Who would dare call it justice? Ask Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States.

posted by Fido the Yak at 11:22 PM.