06 May 2009

Torture should be legal, safe, but rare

Miguel Guanipa, here, describes "a federally sanctioned procedure that is performed on a daily basis in one of the most vibrant democracies on earth, and which has been in place for almost forty years." The procedure he describes is, in fact, part of the required curriculum at medical schools and executed by highly skilled, and highly compensated, professionals. It is also executed solely upon human beings who have committed no crime, a procedure liberals positively love and demand conservatives to embrace:

[I]magine for a moment that you have been assigned a couple of prisoners whom you have been given complete freedom to torture. Neither prisoner is aware of the fate that awaits them. You enter the room of the first prisoner and begin by tearing off one of his limbs. The prisoner -- who is not privy to the reasons why you have committed such a dastardly act against his person -- writhes in agony. You then proceed to systematically sever other vital organs. The prisoner tries to flee in desperation, but you have blocked the only exit through which he may entertain any hopes of escaping his torturer. What the prisoner doesn't know is that prior to the moment you entered the scene you had already planned for him to die before being eventually removed from this chamber.

After the job is finished, you enter the next room in which your next hapless victim waits. He is also unaware that you are about to inflict intolerable pain upon him. But this time you decide to employ a more effective method. You bind this prisoner, and then dip him in a tank full of a corrosive solution that will gradually eat at his flesh, obstruct his breathing, and bring about a slow but certain demise. Within minutes of being submerged in this tank the prisoner expires. You could argue that his death was somewhat more merciful than that of the first prisoner. Now imagine that you had been asked to torture these men, not because they were withholding actionable intelligence that could potentially save the lives of thousands of innocents threatened with imminent peril. It was not because they were active members of an itinerant terrorist organization responsible for wreaking havoc around the world. In fact, both these men were innocent human beings, physically incapable of defending themselves, who had been placed in these rooms through no choice of their own. To make matters worse, their painful deaths were commissioned by and discharged at the full behest of their closest family member.
Happens every day. Liberal Democrats and Moderate Republicans love it.

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James Frank Solís
Former soldier (USA). Graduate-level educated. Married 26 years. Texas ex-patriate. Ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
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