Republicans against torture

by Henry Farrell on September 30, 2004

Sebastian Holsclaw is a regular commenter here – while I’ve had some serious differences with him, he certainly deserves some kudos for this “post”:http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2004/09/republicans_mus.html on Obsidian Wings explaining why his fellow Republicans should disavow the proposed legislation that would facilitate extraordinary renditions. I only hope that others on the right side of the blogosphere start to pick up this message.

{ 30 comments }

1

Russell Arben Fox 09.30.04 at 6:12 pm

Good for Sebastian, and good for everyone who realizes that this about nothing more than a mad rush to look tougher on terrorists than the other guy. I mean, talk about the shadow of Abu Gharib. I’m not usually a “write my congressman a letter” sort of person, but in this case Ted has convinced me.

2

Chance the Gardener 09.30.04 at 6:23 pm

I pointed out that many of his arguments are the same case I would make against capital punishment.

3

Jack 09.30.04 at 7:13 pm

Bird Dog at Tacitus too.

4

bob mcmanus 09.30.04 at 7:34 pm

“mad rush to look tougher on terrorists than the other guy”

The early pullout from the ICC;Guantanamo, and the Supreme Court’s blistering repudiation of a general administration policy;the public repudiation of the Geneva Convention by Rumsfeld and the attempt to provide the legal justification for torture, in the Gonzalez memo;the accellerating number of convictions of soldiers in charge of prisoners ar several locations…do I need to list the entire history?

Umm, where is Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and what is his status?

I am supposed to see this as an isolated publicity stunt, arisen out of a party (this was Congress, not the WH, and look at the sponsorship) with a previously unblemished record? There is not a history here?

Does it really serve the interests of human rights to praise this small isolated act of people who still support the administration and party with such a track record?

Note the “retroactive” part of the rider and ask why it is in there.

5

abb1 09.30.04 at 7:48 pm

Yeah, me too: I don’t think that this a publicity stunt. This is very much a policy decision. They want to have this tool.

6

Maynard Handley 09.30.04 at 8:22 pm

More to the point, what will Sebastian do once this passes as it probably will?
Will the scales finally drop from his eyes as he sees these people for what they are, or will he come up with yet more excuses?
I mean, this is the party of Abu Ghraib, of the Patriot Act, of Guantanamo, of legal reasoning about how to defend torture in a court of law, of prisoners hidden from the Red Cross (for reasons that have still not been explained); it’s not like we don’t know what these guys are like, it’s not like they haven’t done this before

As far as I’m concerned, this is Sebastian trying to put on the mantle of being a good guy, but not actually giving a damn about the issue. At this stage of the game, if you support Bush’s return in 2004, you are on the side of this sort of behavior, full stop. I mean, come on, if you HONESTLY care about this issue, how can you POSSIBLY support a Bush re-election, regardless of your feelings about Kerry’s tax ideas, stance on health-care and so on?

7

Russell Arben Fox 09.30.04 at 8:36 pm

I don’t mean to imply that I doubt think Bush and Co. are seriously interested in possessing this kind of power. Obviously, their track record indicates how much they value it. What I meant was simply that this bill continues in a direction wherein politically proving one’s superior toughness is seen as indistinguishable from actually dealing with terrorists. Passing laws that are unnecessary, immoral and nonsensical becomes part of their strategy. The “mad rush” is the path Republicans have set themselves on under Bush.

Incidentally, should Republicans who, in this one case at least, realize that their party is making a terrible, inflammatory, strategically pointless proposal be criticized for failing to recognize the whole path they’re actually on? Maybe. The ethics of argument are complicated. Still, one should note that such attacks might result in fewer letters to Congress in the long run.

8

BigMacAttack 09.30.04 at 9:21 pm

Maynard Handley,

That is actually one of the reasons I seriously doubt I will be voting for Bush.

But can you do me a favor? Can you limit the nasty attacks on the morality of my fellow Republicans who disapprove of such measures to a minimum?

I am a weak man and I don’t want to back slide and vote for a torturer out of petty spite.

I wonder what those folks who feel torture alone justifies voting against Bush feel about Thomas Frank and Kansas?

I wonder how they became so certain life doesn’t begin at 5 1/2 months that they can ridicule pro-life Kansas voters for voting against their ‘economic self interests’?

9

CalDem 09.30.04 at 9:40 pm

Thats a pretty weak condemnation by Holdsclaw, anything short of urging conservatives to vote against any congressman or president who does not specifically and emphatically reject torture with no exceptions simply won’t do.
When the second Bush administration starts setting up torture camps, Sebastian will probably be on the sidelines urging them to only pull out 5 fingernails instead of 10.

10

bob mcmanus 09.30.04 at 10:57 pm

The responsibility of a party member for the acts of his leaders, or a citizen in a democracy for the acts of her government, is an issue I have been wrestling with since the Vietnam War.

On the one hand, to view citizenship and civic resposibility as beginning and ending at the voting booth is unacceptable. To say people are sheep or children, easily manipulated by leaders, crowds, and propaganda is very dangerous and irresponsible.

On the other hand, as a quick example sincerely not meant to violate Godwin, I look at an average German citizen of 1935 and that same person in 1955 and have difficulty understanding the change. I do not think the 1955 burgher was a closet Nazi, and recognize the consensus (or convenient fiction?) that we did not hold him responsible.

If I have taken a position relative to an entire party, it does not reflect a moral certitude or superiority, but simply an attempted pragmatic tactic. Which like many such tactics, is partly unjust, and possibly counterproductive.

So many qualifications and doubts, gotta be a lefty of some sort.

11

Randolph Fritz 10.01.04 at 2:46 am

“Can you limit the nasty attacks on the morality of my fellow Republicans who disapprove of such measures to a minimum?”

And yet they are still Republicans. It is like the socialists who supported Stalin, long after his true colors became obvious. I know about belief, I know about rigidity, I know all this stuff. And yet I am still unhappy that it is hard for decent Republicans to recognize that their party has been hijacked–was hijacked more than 20 years ago.

Is it all right for me to be horrified? Please?

o/~ I don’t give a damn that I never will be worthy/Fear is the only enemy that I still know! ~/o

12

BigMacAttack 10.01.04 at 3:40 am

Randolph Fritz,

JC. Stalin? Stalin?

However desirable or undesirable the dismantling of the welfare state in the US and the banning of abortion htf can you compare that to what Stalin did?

Is someone using Randolph Fritz’s good name and reputation for reasonableness to bait me?

I mean what is going on?

13

Maynard Handley 10.01.04 at 6:07 am


However desirable or undesirable the dismantling of the welfare state in the US and the banning of abortion htf can you compare that to what Stalin d

Oh don’t be stupid.
His point is that people who sincerely believed in socialism or communism for the best reasons in the world, who wanted a world of that treated the weak, poor and oppressed as human beings, supported Stalin against all reason (and to terrible effect) because they assumed that he could not be quite as bad as people claimed, because his rhetoric included all the right phrases, because, occasionally, he did toss the poor and weak a bone.

Surely the analogy is now laid out clearly enough that I don’t have to connect the dots for you, do I?

14

Sebastian Holsclaw 10.01.04 at 8:28 am

And the analogy is that Bush is as bad as Stalin because everything he does is awful but he says the right things? Or did I connect the dots improperly?

15

Jack 10.01.04 at 8:34 am

No, but that the defence of Bush has the same flaws as he defense of Stalin.

16

Randolph Fritz 10.01.04 at 9:47 am

bigmacattack, I am thinking not of the “dismantling of the welfare state in the US and the banning of abortion”, but of the legalization, however indirect, of torture. I am thinking of Abu Ghraib. I am thinking of the disappeared, both here and in Iraq. I am thinking, also, of the contempt for democracy the current Republican leadership seems to display, and of their contempt for conservative values: in their hands the government gets ever larger and ever more invasive. Then we have their fiscal policy: borrow and spend, going back over 20 years–the largest peacetime expansion of the national debt in US history was led by the Reagan administration.

And, no, it doesn’t match Stalin’s horrors. What I am struck by, though, is the way Republicans have stuck by their leadership, even as it has turned against everything they stand for. And now, torture. Torture! How long do we wait for the honest conservatives and Republicans to recoil in disgust? Take the left’s history with Stalin as a warning: the time to recoil in disgust is before the purges, before the Gulags. Before Abu Ghraib. Before “extraordinary rendition” becomes law. Believe me, it can get worse. It can get much worse.

17

Sandriana 10.01.04 at 10:57 am

Oh, give me a break. the conflation of Bush with Stalin is just that, a conflation; there is no personal or historical parallel between the two. As much as I loathe Bush, he has yet to send millions of US citizens to die in Alaska in work camps.

However, what strikes me as undeniably true is that, should you continue to support a politician or party *knowing* what their policies are and their actions have been, then you also hold moral responsibility for what that person has done or will do. One of the major planks of democracy is collective responsibility for the actions of society. Otherwise,what’s the point in having a vote at all?

18

Sandriana 10.01.04 at 10:58 am

Oh, give me a break. the conflation of Bush with Stalin is just that, a conflation; there is no personal or historical parallel between the two. As much as I loathe Bush, he has yet to send millions of US citizens to die in Alaska in work camps.

However, what strikes me as undeniably true is that, should you continue to support a politician or party *knowing* what their policies are and their actions have been, then you also hold moral responsibility for what that person has done or will do. One of the major planks of democracy is collective responsibility for the actions of society. Otherwise,what’s the point in having a vote at all?

19

Sandriana 10.01.04 at 11:00 am

My apologies for double and now triple-posting :-/

20

BigMacAttack 10.01.04 at 5:53 pm

Maynard Handley,

At least I have the option.

If that is the case Randolph Fritz could and should have used a different analogy. An analogy that wasn’t so needlessly emotive. As is, instead of making his point, his analogy distracts from his point.

As this thread very clearly shows.

21

BigMacAttack 10.01.04 at 5:56 pm

Randolph Fritz,

So why are progressives so blind? Why do they refuse to support Republicans even after 20 years of Republicans demonstrating that they stand against everything conservatives stand for?

Maynard Handley is allowed to call Sebastian Holsclaw and anyone who votes for Bush immoral.

I am allowed to point out that millions of ordinary Republicans will be voting for Bush because they very reasonably believe Kerry will spend even more. Because they value the lives of millions of unborn children. Because being good men, who trust in their good government at home, they cannot make the connection between
removing the constraints of that government abroad, to deal with a threat that frightens them, and actions that they find genuinely despicable. When narcissists or the just plain nasty denounce those decent people as immoral, expect me to be offended.

22

Jack 10.01.04 at 9:14 pm

Sandriana, bigmacattack, the conflation of Bush and Stalin is lainly a straw man. Indeed Randolph Fritz explicitly disavows the claim you criticize — that Bush is as bad as Stalin. They are also explicitly being charitable towards those who support Bush.

The simple point is that people who in their own sphere would have been against all the bad things Stalin did continued to support him long after it became obvious that he was in fact a monster. The implication is that with this failure of critical faculties disappears an important check on the exercise of power. The suggestion that the modern Republican party bears little relation to the party of Eisenhower or Lincoln seems unarguable and is indeed documented.

The party is protectionist, free spending, centralising, interventionist and intrusive in society.

The suggestion that Kerry will spend more than Bush is based on what? The record of Bill Clinton? Carter? This non-evidence based approach is exactly the sort of prejudiced feeling Maynard and randolph are talking about.

There must be a better defense of Bush than “he’s not as bad as Stalin”.

23

BigMacAttack 10.02.04 at 2:03 am

Jack,

‘Sandriana, bigmacattack, the conflation of Bush and Stalin is lainly a straw man. Indeed Randolph Fritz explicitly disavows the claim you criticize — that Bush is as bad as Stalin.’

And I accepted both Randoplh’s disavowal and Maynard’s explanation. What you have presented is a strawman about a strawman.

‘They are also explicitly being charitable towards those who support Bush.’

Perhaps Randolph is but Maynard clearly is not. He clearly states that if Sebastian condemn’s the torture but votes for Bush he is supporting torture while trying to cover himself with the mantle of a good guy.

But perhaps you consider such an attitude charitable.

‘The suggestion that Kerry will spend more than Bush is based on what? The record of Bill Clinton? Carter? This non-evidence based approach is exactly the sort of prejudiced feeling Maynard and randolph are talking about.’

Ok fine. If the shoe fits wear it. If Kerry is the canidate of little government, less government spending, why aren’t progessives rallying to Bush. And why aren’t conservatives rallying to Kerry.

Could I please be spared the patronizng nonsense of Kerry supporting progessives urging me to support Kerry because Bush is a big spender? Please.

‘There must be a better defense of Bush than “he’s not as bad as Stalin”.’

Yes as I noted one reasonable defense might be he isn’t as bad as Kerry. Looks like a slim majority of Americans currently agree.

24

Maynard Handley 10.02.04 at 10:17 am


Perhaps Randolph is but Maynard clearly is not. He clearly states that if Sebastian condemn’s the torture but votes for Bush he is supporting torture while trying to cover himself with the mantle of a good guy.

Damn straight that’s what I’m saying. Your argument against that seems to be, “Yeah well at least Bush won’t raise my taxes”.

Look, if your personal opinion is that lower taxes is something you value as more important than the federal government’s attitude towards torture (let’s put aside the fact that Bush’s lower taxes are all an illusion that’s going to crumble pretty soon anyway), look that’s your choice, and you have to live what that; but at least have the guts to outright say it.

I will lay out the argument very simply for you:
* This present administration has indicated repeatedly that it has no moral qualms about torture, to the maximum extent it can get away with it
* If they stay in power, they will undoubtedly use their re-election as an affirmation of the past four years, and will be even more aggressive in employing torture, no habeas corpus, secret laws, and whatever else they can get away with
* Therefore if you help them into power, you are complicit with this future behavior.

I don’t care about your attitude towards the candidates vis a vis taxes, gay marriage, the environment or anything else. The point is; by voting for Bush, you are making a choice — you are saying this bundle of other issues is more important than the moral issue of torture. At that point, OF COURSE you lose the right to claim the moral high ground for yourself as this big anti-torture advocate.

25

Randolph Fritz 10.02.04 at 6:11 pm

“Oh, give me a break. the conflation of Bush with Stalin is just that, a conflation; there is no personal or historical parallel between the two. As much as I loathe Bush, he has yet to send millions of US citizens to die in Alaska in work camps.”

Well, 5000 arrests, no convictions is a start. The time to recoil in disgust is before the work camps, surely? And the parallel that strikes me is the loyalty of otherwise-decent people to an administration that, it is more and more clear, is morally bankrupt.

26

BigMacAttack 10.02.04 at 7:39 pm

Maynard Handley,

My actual argument was

‘I am allowed to point out that millions of ordinary Republicans will be voting for Bush because they very reasonably believe Kerry will spend even more. Because they value the lives of millions of unborn children. Because being good men, who trust in their good government at home, they cannot make the connection between
removing the constraints of that government abroad, to deal with a threat that frightens them, and actions that they find genuinely despicable. When narcissists or the just plain nasty denounce those decent people as immoral, expect me to be offended.’

How you get –

‘Damn straight that’s what I’m saying. Your argument against that seems to be, “Yeah well at least Bush won’t raise my taxes”.’

from that is beyond me.

‘I don’t care about your attitude towards the candidates vis a vis taxes, gay marriage, the environment or anything else. The point is; by voting for Bush, you are making a choice —- you are saying this bundle of other issues is more important than the moral issue of torture.’

Yes quite. That person might be saying the lives of millions of unborn children are more important than your fantasies regarding Bush and torture.

(Do try and remember that one of the reasons I am not voting for Bush is torture.)

I grow bored.

Continue chanting do you agree with my point of view or are you so immoral you lust for the blood of innocents.

Without my input.

27

BigMacAttack 10.02.04 at 7:54 pm

Randolph Fritz,

‘Well, 5000 arrests, no convictions is a start. The time to recoil in disgust is before the work camps, surely?’

From the begining it was pretty appearent that you were trying to have your cake call Bush Stalin like and eat it deny your were calling Bush Stalin like.

Thanks for the confirmation.

28

mona 10.02.04 at 9:07 pm

It’s always comforting, when people are more outraged by outrageously hyperbolic parallels than by the actual existence of hundreds of people being detained with no charges, illegal detention camps, torture, abuses, violations, ex-Baathists and Chalabi’s cousins ruling Iraq, and the talebans back in charge in Afghanistan, only now they’re your friends. Priorities, priorities. You don’t disrespect the Great Leader, that’s what matters most.

29

Randolph Fritz 10.02.04 at 10:46 pm

Bigmacattack, 5,000 false arrests, however cruel, pale beside Stalin’s execution of millions. Even the requested right to deport foreign nationals to certain torture is still minor, compared to Stalin’s vast cruelties.

Nonetheless, these are monstrous things. The abuses of the US radical right have steadily descended as the radicals have gained power and I can see no reason to believe that they have reached their nadir; long before that nadir has been reached we will be unable to remove them from power without civil war. The time, therefore, to do so is now and yet, like the defenders of Stalin’s greater abuses, still the moderate right defends these acts.

The leaders of the right have support torture. Never forget it.

“If Kerry is the canidate of little government, less government spending, why aren’t progessives rallying to Bush. And why aren’t conservatives rallying to Kerry.”

Why is this more important to conservatives than torture? Surely even the consideration of torture as government policy is more important than reasonable fiscal policies one disagrees with? For myself, if I had a choice between John McCain and Joe Covert Stalinist, I would vote for McCain in a second. I disagree with McCain on many points, but after a McCain victory, the USA would still be a place where I could still speak my mind and pursue my political goals. After Joe Stalinist, tyranny.

Values. There’s political disagreement, and then there’s raw tyranny. I do not want to win so badly that I am willing to see the USA turn into a tyranny. And I doubt the moderate right does, either. But the moderate right seems to me to want to win so badly that its members are willing to ignore tyrannical acts on the part of your leaders. That is how tyrants come to power.

Is it all right for me to be horrified? Please?

30

Sebastian Holsclaw 10.04.04 at 5:52 pm

It is perfectly all right to be horrified by all sorts of things. But not all things that horrify you are worthy of being labeled Stalinesque.

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