Monday, December 05, 2005
Thank you David Tell
Thank you, David Tell.
Proof positive that morality doesn’t correlate with intelligence; proof positive that there is no shortage of apologists for indefensible behavior; proof positive that sickly, depraved muddy-the-water and slippery slope arguments still have a home at The Weekly Standard: all these things come together in the amazing person of David Tell.
I think Tell woke up one day and said “I need to stretch my rhetorical abilities. I’m going to defend…torture!” Then he shambled downstairs to his desktop, poured himself into his chair, and tapped out his Ode to Brutality with a single, squamous finger. Leaned back, exhaled a putrid vapor, and said “that one is for you, Father Cheney. My loyalty is, as always, yours to command.”
Tell writes in his apologia for Evil titled “Torture Logic” that the vote on torture might be “a teeny bit more complicated than that” Muddy the waters, Servant of Satan, muddy the waters. He goes on to explain that, if approved, the McCain Amendment might force Gitmo and Abu Ghraib to meet “exactly the same standards federal judges have cumulatively imposed, under the Eighth Amendment, on San Quentin and Leavenworth.” Detainees enjoying all the constitutional protections of –gasp--American Citizens!
A vile slippery slope argument. David Tell, if alive in 1920, would have been arguing that giving women the right to vote would eventually lead to hamsters being given the right to vote. OH! Where will it end!?! His fellow shuffling, slurping Things from the Depths use similar arguments to shoot down gay marriage, i.e. Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa), arguing that giving gays the right to marry will inevitably lead to “man on beast” marriage.
Weak. Craven. And strongly stinking of moral decay and the panic of gangsters just caught with a body in the trunk.
This, children, is how conservatism justifies torture: false analogies, the Masked Man Fallacy, moral cowardice, wanton cruelty, and arguments that extending any legal protection to prisoners will inevitably lead to known terrorists enjoying cable TV and massages in country-club prisons run by the U. S. of A.
Safer simply to waterboard them. Forget the fact that there has historically been no way for detainees to prove their innocence (and, indeed, no burden of proof on the government to prove their guilt). These suspected terrorists have among their number people who were turned in by their neighbors, who have had no legal recourse, who have languished in jail for years with no attourney, no court date, and no few protections against torture other than the good word of the Bush Administration that it doesn’t torture people, despite what the Taguba Report says, despite the fact that Amnesty International has called these prisons the “Gulags of our times.”
This is not brain surgery, ladies and gentleman. For the record, I would like to add David Tell’s name to the list of men below who opposed the McCain Amendment: Allard (R-CO), Bond (R-MO), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Cornyn (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), Stevens (R-AK).
These names deserve repeating.
Proof positive that morality doesn’t correlate with intelligence; proof positive that there is no shortage of apologists for indefensible behavior; proof positive that sickly, depraved muddy-the-water and slippery slope arguments still have a home at The Weekly Standard: all these things come together in the amazing person of David Tell.
I think Tell woke up one day and said “I need to stretch my rhetorical abilities. I’m going to defend…torture!” Then he shambled downstairs to his desktop, poured himself into his chair, and tapped out his Ode to Brutality with a single, squamous finger. Leaned back, exhaled a putrid vapor, and said “that one is for you, Father Cheney. My loyalty is, as always, yours to command.”
Tell writes in his apologia for Evil titled “Torture Logic” that the vote on torture might be “a teeny bit more complicated than that” Muddy the waters, Servant of Satan, muddy the waters. He goes on to explain that, if approved, the McCain Amendment might force Gitmo and Abu Ghraib to meet “exactly the same standards federal judges have cumulatively imposed, under the Eighth Amendment, on San Quentin and Leavenworth.” Detainees enjoying all the constitutional protections of –gasp--American Citizens!
A vile slippery slope argument. David Tell, if alive in 1920, would have been arguing that giving women the right to vote would eventually lead to hamsters being given the right to vote. OH! Where will it end!?! His fellow shuffling, slurping Things from the Depths use similar arguments to shoot down gay marriage, i.e. Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa), arguing that giving gays the right to marry will inevitably lead to “man on beast” marriage.
Weak. Craven. And strongly stinking of moral decay and the panic of gangsters just caught with a body in the trunk.
This, children, is how conservatism justifies torture: false analogies, the Masked Man Fallacy, moral cowardice, wanton cruelty, and arguments that extending any legal protection to prisoners will inevitably lead to known terrorists enjoying cable TV and massages in country-club prisons run by the U. S. of A.
Safer simply to waterboard them. Forget the fact that there has historically been no way for detainees to prove their innocence (and, indeed, no burden of proof on the government to prove their guilt). These suspected terrorists have among their number people who were turned in by their neighbors, who have had no legal recourse, who have languished in jail for years with no attourney, no court date, and no few protections against torture other than the good word of the Bush Administration that it doesn’t torture people, despite what the Taguba Report says, despite the fact that Amnesty International has called these prisons the “Gulags of our times.”
This is not brain surgery, ladies and gentleman. For the record, I would like to add David Tell’s name to the list of men below who opposed the McCain Amendment: Allard (R-CO), Bond (R-MO), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Cornyn (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), Stevens (R-AK).
These names deserve repeating.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 7:38 PM 
