Kathleen Parker: Torture question defines us as Americans

[struggle4progress]

Posted: 04/24/2009 05:48:35 PM PDT

... "I'm trying to figure out if I have an ethical conflict," I began.

"If you have to ask, you do," he said ...

Apply the same construct to torture. If we have to ask, it probably is.

Yet, as we've learned with the recent release of Justice Department memos related to interrogation techniques, Bush administration lawyers tortured the English language trying to justify the unjustifiable ...

http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinions/ci_12221858

I'm always reluctant to quote Parker, who is much too conservative for my tastes: but if Parker has gotten to this point, much of America may really be ready to move on the torture issue

[panader0]

1. I rarely agree with Parker either

but "defines us as Americans" is pretty true. Prosecute!

[dalaigh lllama]

2. Further on she has this:

"Almost daily I receive a recycled 2002 quote by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who argued in a "60 Minutes" interview that most people would justify torture under certain circumstances:

"Is there anybody who wouldn't use torture to save the life of his child? And if you would, isn't it a bit selfish to say, `It's OK to save my child's life, but it's not OK to save the life of 1,000 strangers?' That's the way people will think about it."

-------

Now, I can think of two arguments here. 1) Please explain how you would use torture to save the life of your child? and 2) By the same logic, should it be okay for a parent to murder someone who has hurt their child?

[bemildred]

3. It's just a re-phrased "end justifies the means" argument.

Where the end is made extreme in order to justify the extreme means. And that is just an argument that expediency justifies whatever you want. Another way to put it is that if God forbid we find ourselves in a hellish situation, the only proper thing to do is to make it more hellish for someone we don't like.

[struggle4progress]

4. That's vintage Parker; the article contains almost nothing factual but is designed

to provoke loud content-free arguments. Dershowitz's position was shameful

[Captain Hilts]

5. She blames everything on feminism. The WashPost hired her because only 14% of opeds were by women.

But I'll check out this column.

[Skittles]

6. that gal is starting to scare me

she's always been full of shit but lately it's like she's seen some sort of light :o

[struggle4progress]

7. She may just be trying to play centrist for a while: if so, she'll gradually drift

back to Wingnut country

[Skittles]

8. yes, I know the type

:puke:

[underpants]

9. Frank Rich shows why people like Parker are so useless-she completely misses the story

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x443511

[Bluenorthwest]

10. Parker had a breakthrough

during the election, when she spoke out against Palin, and the right wingers came down on Parker like locusts. She got the email Michael Moore is used to, and it opened her tight conservative eyes a bit. After years of detesting her reactionary columns, I have been surprised by her several times since she decided Palin was a pug too far.

[pat_k]

11. kick