On Torture, Punishment and Facing Evil
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“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? ” -Abraham Lincoln
While watching TV lately i’ve come across some rather grouesome crimes. This page is not one for the death peanility normally, but it does believe there are some people who don’t belong on the same planet as the rest of us. These include Hitler, the Son of Sam, Jack the Ripper and Josef Fritzl. There are other less famous names but i think you see the point here. Basically people we believe are no longer human and who the word humanity should not apply.
However, in the context of this great debate of how to punish these people it came up that death seemed too … simple and quick; that the brutality they have inflicted on others should be reflected back on them in some small way. I guess that feeling falls upon where and how one views the issue. Do you see the issue as “an eye for an eye”, or one where the only judgment that came be rendered can be done so by a divine being? (to which some of the first advocated sending them to that divine being immediately.)
I now pull you along to some legal hair splitting, and torture :
8th Amendment, US Constitution: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
The Constitution states basically that we shall not inflict cruel and unusual punishment. In the legal hair splitting, it does not say on to who nor does it say “or” it says “and” which for an originalist reading, to punishment has to both be cruel AND unusual to disavowed, not just one or the other. Why the Originalist reading? Well Supreme Court Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia pointed out in an interview when asked if torture was wrong for terror suspects, that it wasn’t, why? Torture was not a punishment but a means of extracting information. I’d have to go with the fact that if it were used as punishment,-say to inflict half the paint those men above inflicted on their victims- it would be. Worse, he’s right. Infact the Geneva Convention does not give someone an out either, because it only offers protection for Lawfully Constituted Combat Soldiers of which terrorist are not, nor will be.
This is of course where morality and ethics collide with “what’s good for the people”. Where do we, as a people, as a country stand on the issue. The TV show 24 tells us all we want to know. If you (a terrorist) is caught, bomb in hand and with a confirmed 1 more or so to go, overwhelmingly, torture is approved, even chosen by some of the most pacifist amung us. If however, if torture is to be part of your crime, we disown and disdain it. (Never mind that we know some torture is involved, like putting child molesters in the same same sell block as Drug dealers. It never goes well for the Child Molester)
Naturally, we have our own views on the subject, and any rational person would. We also have less patience for legal dancing than most, but these are hard questions. What do we do with those who are so …wrong that evil is the only thing that we can apply to them. How do we combat them without ourselves, losing our own humanity and becoming that which we hate?
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. – George Orwell
As a society we’ve taken an interesting path, seen in the likes of our growing Anti-Hero’s and Tortured men, in our Armed forces, and “silent killers”. We match an evil with an evil, and turn it againt itself. These Rough men, these people we know must exist, but we don’t acknowledge have been our soul (sole) saviors. The movie, Munich, tries to explain what happens when a society tries to take punishment into its own hands for the torture it’s receiving.
While not all of us are built to face evil, we cannot abandon or forsake those we’ve sent into hell who come back broken or lost. We cannot turn our back on them. Legal Hairs aside.
OceansOfThought @ May 1, 2008