Legal torture

Sheila Suess Kennedy | 04/02/2008 - 10:17

Over at Balkinization, there is an important conversation going on about another of John Yoo's recently uncovered torture memos--as in, hey, it's not torture if the President says it isn't. And what's wrong with torture anyway. As Balkin notes, there is "an important fact about legal discourse: Lawyers can make really bad legal arguments that argue for very unjust things in perfectly legal sounding language." There is a substantial segment of the population that will engage in truly horrific behavior if a sufficiently "legal-sounding" justification exists.


Lalita Amos | 04/02/2008 - 10:35 |  ...and a Lynching is just a Picnic with Entertainment

Are our government officials just stupid or are they truly evil?

I'm waiting for an answer.

Just the thought that these folks can call a garden trowel a Porsche stuns me, though not as much as how inured we've become to their shenanigans.

I can remember the "reasonable person standard" from my EEO/AA days in HR, telling managers (white and male, every one of them) that their world view may not support them in understanding how a woman or a man or woman of color could see the world so differntly and not just be "being overly sensitive."

Can we use some kind of reasonable government standard here where we enjoin our leaders and their lackeys to think--not from from a world view that's about getting away with what's expedient but about whether their actions both support national security and the tenets on which this country rests?

Anyway, I'm still waiting.

________
Lalita L. Amos, CRC
http://www.totalteamsolutions.com
http://totalteam.blogspot.com



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