Brad Delong quotes David Schaengold regarding torture:
Is the GOP really becoming the party of torture? For the past several years I have been assuming that the torture would eventually stop … But the battle seems fundamentally lost, and I have personally lost a good deal of the stamina required to make the same basic arguments over and over again…. Should we prepare to open a new front of the culture war? Are we ready to slog away for decades with the hope of convincing our compatriots that torture is a discredit to our country and a betrayal of our most basic political principles?
I’ve considered this for some time and have come to this conclusion:
This is an argument not to be had.
That is – this is not a point of argument. People who support torture are being bad people. People who implement torture are criminals. I will not entertain an argument here. I will not give the support of torture the legitimacy it obtains by arguing it. I will not allow the implication of sanity that an argument allows to a subject that is simply insane.
It would be like opening a conversation about the allowable use of rape and taking the supporters seriously. Just arguing it gives a legitimacy that lends to the immorality in itself.
Torture supporters are being evil – period. It is not a “difference of opinion”. I think if every sane American does the same, refuses the argument by admonishing the supporter, this will go away very quickly.
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