Some things you cannot compromise on
As Kip over at Long Story, Short Pier discusses:
Leaving aside the stark fact any fule kno?that utilitarian arguments for torture crumble before its staggering uselessness as a means of generating trustworthy, actionable intelligence?there?s the craven, callow figure of a man Gonzalez presents, willing to bend any rule, write any memo, fill out any form that does what his boss wants done. Forget, for a moment, torture: Alberto Gonzalez, attorney, judge, Republican, insouciantly opined that the President could ?set aside? whatever quaint laws got in his way?thereby setting aside almost 800 years of common law pretty much because a few bad apples might otherwise rough up the ride a little.
A woolly-headed socialist with anarcho-syndicalist leanings shouldn?t have to remind a libertarian what happens when you grant a government powers like that.
And maybe my ?side? does demand a certain ideological purity, comparatively speaking; maybe doing so means we?ve pretty much lost on this one, and we?ll have Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and the sick-making transposition of an ?n? for a ?q? in today?s Times will prove a harbinger, not a typo, and we?ll be talking about the horrible photos coming out of Evin in a couple of years. Maybe that?s not how it will happen. I don?t know. But whatever happens, however it happens, I?ll know I never valued liberty so lightly that I?d toss it out the window at the first sign of trouble. I?d know I still thought some ideals were worth a suicide pact. Torture is wrong; we should never, ever do it; anyone who ever tried to write it off as no big deal for whatever reason has no business as our Attorney General?and if my ?side? fails to prevent that from coming to pass, well, that?s something we?ll have to live with, yes, but at least we?ll know where we stood, and for what.