My dear colleague JMR –
Thanks for your responses overall, including your exchange with my friend and fellow subversive Steve Hays. It’s good to see the extent to which you are willing to defend your position.
A clarification before I continue on the topic of this letter — in your reply “Men Should Crucify No Man”, you said:
Generally he thinks I am not Christian in my reasoning.
Let’s make sure that if this is how you are receiving what I have said, the other readers of this exchange will understand me to have said this:
While I think you are at best failing to show some of your moral calculus here, at worst you may be missing the point of the Bible itself by missing the key matter of the scope and force of justice in God’s economy. There’s much more to be said here, but I look forward to your response to this.
The status of the Christianity of your reasoning is not my concern: whether or not you’re referencing even broadly the Bible and its moral reasoning is. Let’s not derail this into a discussion about whether or not you are a follower of Jesus Christ. I’m willing to take that at face value and simply point out that your reasoning in this matter doesn’t include all the relevant citations from the OT, the Gospels, and Paul.
Let’s be concerned about what’s Biblical in regard to this subject before we turn to what is “Christian” as one precedes the other.
That clarified, you said this as well:
Suppose Turk is asserting the following:If A deserves x and B gives A x, that B was right to give A x.
This is absurd on its face.
To give a Victorian example, A may deserve to be kissed and B may kiss A, but B be wrong to give a kiss to A.
In some cases, a person deserves a thing, but only from a particular individual or in a particular way. That is the case with punishment. The state has the right to do something (x) to me, but that does not give you that right.
Well: sure. And you do a great job of further developing this point to say that everything that one deserves is not necessarily what one ought to get from the next person walking by — the example of the thief stealing from the thief is spot-on.
The problem is that you are have framed this in terms of rights rather than responsibilities.
Listen: if the thief steals my Nissan Altima and I find where he lives, I don’t have a right to “steal” it back or even repossess it, let alone incarcerate him for his crime: I have a responsibility to report the theft, and to report (if I find him) the name and location of the thief to the proper authorities. It is then their responsibility to take action to enforce the letter and spirit of the law. They are entirely responsible to recover my property which was stolen insofar as they are able. They are responsible to charge the thief with his crime, and to punish him if and when he is convicted of the crime.
This process is congruent to the moral/civil code of the Bible — it’s not identical because our system is not a theocratic system which is focussed on making the Temple and its worship & sacrifices the center of our social order. But our system is established on the meaning of justice.
And it is this word, this concept which your arguments frankly do not want to deal with. For example, you have turned the fact that Paul says that the justice meant for us was poured out on Jesus into an argument against the state pouring out that kind of punishment ever again — but in fact Paul would repudiate such a notion. You cannot find any place in the NT where Paul or Peter or Jesus repudiate the kinds of punishment the civil authorities use to turn back evil-doers. Peter in fact says, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. [1 Peter 2:14-15]” His framing there is interesting as he’s telling the persecuted church that what the rulers at all levels are responsible for is a good thing.
But get this as Peter goes on: “For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. [1 Peter 2:20]” he says explicitly that some offenses are rightly dealt with by administering beatings: it’s no credit to you to endure a beating for transgressions — because, it is implied, this is what you deserve. You simply cannot sweep that under the carpet as a lack of information regarding the proper outcome for criminal behavior, or a lack of clarity on Peter’s part. Plainly the apostolic view of just punishment for normal criminal activity was far more severe than yours and mine.
This circles back to the biblical question of justice. Justice is not a right that individuals exercise: insofar as justice is a right, it is a right which we can demand from the responsible authority. The Bible — and the NT — is simply rife with examples of this from Moses’ murder of the Egyptian official to the parable of the ungrateful servant. The offended may have a right to justice, but he does not have a right to extract justice. He has a responsibility to plead for justice from the responsible and governing authority.
My point to this place is simply to indicate that justice under normal circumstance, insofar as the Bible describes it, is far more severe than what we practice today — for more than one good reason, I am sure. But when the Bible speaks to rulers acting in justice, it is not merely describing a system of demerits: it is describing a system where the punishment is designed to hurt the offender and therefore deter other potential criminals.
Not everyone is empowered to do this because it is a violent and costly act. And this is where most of your reasoning comes apart, JMR: you want to make every man morally equivalent in society — and in this case, every man is not morally-equivalent. The citizen is not a police officer; the officer is not a judge; the judge is not the prison warden or the guard or the executioner. And most importantly: the guilty does not have the same standing as the innocent. The questions of responsibility, authority , and justice have to be reckoned in what we are discussing.
As this is true in merely-judicial matters, it is also true in the case of war. That is: while you and I as citizens have no authority to declare war, if either you or I became President (for example), we would have the ability to petition Congress for a declaration of War, and also thereafter the responsibility to wage war. Whether the process there is particularly-biblical doesn’t interest me at this time: what interests me is the question of whether conducting war is an act of justice or not — that is, whether those who have the authority to wage war also have the ability and the intent to do so.
See: the Bible says they do, and rulers need to see this clearly. Committing an act of war is either just (that is: a right use of the responsibility of ruling and judging) or unjust (a wrong use of the right responsibility). I can’t imagine you’d deny that at all — it’s a classic definition of a “just war”, which of course points us to “jus ad bellum” and “jus in bello”.
Before we go there, it’s important to say this out loud: what a ruler does in war is not the same thing he does in common judgment. What one does to enforce the common law is not hardly what one will do to overcome the threat of another nation — it is in fact much more severe in scope and objective. And this translates into personal acts which are inconceivable apart from the context of war.
That said, I think that you, JMR, are worried about the matter of whether “torture” is jus in bello. At some point, you have to frame what you’re saying in those terms, and I look forward to reading what you have to say on that matter.
Here’s what I would say on that matter as a starter:
[1] The very nature of war is an abandonment of normal reasoning principles regarding charity, civility, kindness and human fellowship — in fact, I suggest to you that the only “normal” reasoning basis we can use to frame up activity in war is “justice”. War is what we have when all that is at stake is Justice.
[2] To that end, all the qualifications of jus in bello can be measured and framed up: distinction, proportionality, and military necessity.
[3] Given these criteria, all enemy combatants must assume they are going to be subject to all manner of conceivable necessary responses based on the methods they adopt in engagement.
[4] Captured combatants should expect to be interrogated to the end that their enemy will use them to determine what is militarily necessary.
[5] “Interrogation” is a method of war, and is subject to jus in bello reasoning to determine the methods, means, and modes to achieve the end of a just war. But note: the final state of those subjected to those methods must be “defeated” — and may mean “dead”.
That lines out the broadest possible outline of where I’d steer this conversation — and I think it is by far more useful and applicable to real combat and real wartime decision-making than the therapeutic definition of “torture” you have provided. Your definition would eliminate all manner of activity in war-time, and the next time I write I’ll explain what I mean by that. In the meantime, may God bless you and may this discussion be of use to you and to our readers.
~Frank
January 10th, 2010 | 9:27 pm | #1
Hey Frank,
Thoughtful post, but I think I’m on board with JMR on this one. (Though I’m totally still with you when it comes to justification, atonement, and the rest.)
I guess my primary question/objection is this: how are we as Christians reflecting the Gospel in our lives when we ask our government to torture prisoners of war? (This question is especially pressing in a republic, where we are directly responsible for the actions of our government.)
Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated, as this is a difficult issue…
January 10th, 2010 | 10:46 pm | #2
Terrorists aren’t POWs. Terrorists go out of their way to flout the laws of war.
How do you define “torture”? Is any form of coercive interrogation, however mild, “torture” in your eyes?
January 10th, 2010 | 11:26 pm | #3
Frank To that end, all the qualifications of jus in bello can be measured and framed up: distinction, proportionality, and military necessity. [3] Given these criteria, all enemy combatants must assume they are going to be subject to all manner of conceivable necessary responses based on the methods they adopt in engagement.
I think you’re failing to follow the jus bello principles you outlined. The criteria of distinction means that we have to differentiate between enemy combatants and enemy noncombatants. In just war theory an enemy combatant is someone who can provide a direct threat to do harm to those around him and not on some existential threat based on what information they may possess.
And the idea that enemy noncombatants should think they are “subject to all manner of conceivable necessary responses based on the methods they adopt in engagement” is both wrong and unjust. Combatants can shoot to injure or kill in combat, using whatever means are available to defend their lives (rifle, knife, bayonet, grenade, etc.). But we are not allowed to use those same methods on prisoners.
The idea that we could bayonet prisoners in our custody is perverse.
Captured combatants should expect to be interrogated to the end that their enemy will use them to determine what is militarily necessary.
No, no, no, they shouldn’t. Good grief. Are we really willing to throw out the standards of the Geneva convention in order to justify torturing terrorists? No offense, but it creeps me out when civilians start saying that American servicemembers should expect to be tortured to whatever extent our enemy deems necessary.
January 10th, 2010 | 11:36 pm | #4
Terrorists go out of their way to flout the laws of war.
I don’t deny that’s true, but there are two problems with drawing that into a justification for torture (if that’s what you’re doing, if not then I apologize for misreading):
1) The fact that they’re doing something evil doesn’t give us the right to do the same. The devil uses all kinds of nasty things against us, but we are explicitly not to respond in kind (Jude 9). So if torture is wrong, and I believe it is, then it is simply off the table as a social option.
2) Terrorists aren’t POWs. The problem is, we’ve declared this a war. Maybe a fuzzy, nebulous “war on terror,” but a war nonetheless. And as such, however they act, we’ve got to live by our own rules. If we want to go back and redefine the whole thing as something other than a war with a whole new set of rules, that’s something we have to do as a society carefully and thoughtfully. But until we do that, it’s a war. So as Christians we ought to think in terms of just war, and as Americans we ought to think in terms of the rules and conditions we’ve set up amongst ourselves and agreed to with other nations.
January 11th, 2010 | 7:26 am | #5
There is no biblical mandate for torture. There has been an attempt by Mr. Turk to stretch a couple of verses to that boundary, but the attempt obviously fails. For example, 1 Peter 2:20 is not a mandate for government. It is at most (on this question) a recognition that the government of his time had the power to inflict a beating for an offense. The point of the verse is about individual Christian response in light of this fact. IOW, we cannot turn this context into pretext. In even a light most favorable to Mr. Turk’s view, the “beating” mentioned here is one of retributive justice. It has nothing to do with torture. So: misapplied on two counts.
There is no prohibition of the “power of the sword” (Ro. 13) for secular government in the Bible. There is no mandate, either. The details of how the power to enforce order is manifested is left to be worked out. Vis-a-vis the death penalty, for instance, there is no mandate. There are good arguments on either side of the question from the Christian point of view. My own view is that the death penalty is just under certain circumstances (e.g., DNA can be the functional equivalent of the two witnesses standard in the OT).
With regard to torture (the question of what constitutes torture is a rabbit trail for this discussion; as one Supreme Court justice said of obscenity, we certainly know it when we see it. So let’s just assume for the moment we’re talking about real “torture”), and in light of the fact there is no clear mandate, we are likewise left to apply biblical reasoning to this question.
One argument that carries some force with me is the following: We cannot ignore the fact that in arguing for torture, we are handing the power in most cases to sinful, unredeemed men. The temptation to cruelty and abuse can’t be overlooked. The effect on a soul cannot be denied. So one of the most crucial questions is not what the torture does to the tortured, but to the torturers.
Maybe we better think about how Luke 17:1 and 1 Cor. 10:32 apply to the question.
January 11th, 2010 | 10:18 am | #6
Coyle asks:
Steve hays pointed this out in his back-and-forth with JMR, and I want to underscore something: this is simply a prejudicial way of putting the question. It’s exactly like asking, “how are we as Christians reflecting the Gospel in our lives when we ask our government to murder enemy soldiers during war?” That is — it makes it sound like war is itself an illegitimate function of Government.
War is not an illegitimate function of Government. If that’s not a self-evident piece of Biblical reasoning, there’s no basis for this discussion at all.
But what also gets hidden here is another presupposition: that somehow Government is a legitimate vehicle for the Gospel. That is — the Government is itself a means to spreading the Gospel, and must conform to the Gospel standard of behavior (love, forgive, etc.). That’s simply not the government’s purview.
That said, I think that when a Government wages war, a Government has the obligation to wage the war in order to win the war — not to dally in war, or pretend that war is not a horrible business which should be a last resort. To that end, if I can roll Joe’s horror up into this response, of course using a “take no prisoners” approach is inconceivable, and killing all prisoners seems untenanble — because we aren’t fighting that war (I might add: yet). It’s becuase we aren’t just applying a “jus bellum” theory but a specific aspect of “just war”: “justice while in war”. “jus in bello”.
That is: we use only the means which achieve the end and not more in excess. To Joe, this seems to mean that using disincentives in interrogation (you make the list, but be fair: every disincentive is not boiling a man in oil) is unconscienable. What Joe has utterly abandoned is the fact that the only reason a prison is not dead on arrival is the mercy of his opponents — an inclination to be using just war philosophy in the first place.
“torture” implies that the activity is somehow gratuitous or unwarranted. I would agree that we wouldn’t just lock somebody in a room with a sociopath for the laughs — or even necessarily for what little information he might be able to provide. But if we apprehended bin Laden today, I would expect — and demand, insofar as it is in my power to do that as a citizen — that he be interrogated with prejudice until everything he knows about the networks supporting Al-Qaida was laid bare.
If you wouldn’t, or won’t, you are simply not fighting the war to the minimum expectation of defeating this enemy — and that expectation lies at the base of a just war.
Other good questions in this thread. I’ll see if I can get back to them later today.
January 11th, 2010 | 10:45 am | #7
Coyle, we haven’t declared it a war. We’ve declared it a hybrid of war and law enforcement. There’s no enemy nation that we’re at war with. We don’t recognize al Qaeda as a legitimate authority. They’re a terrorist organization. We use the language of war, but we also use the language of law enforcement. The question is how much of each we’re entitled to use and whether our use of both as we wish to achieve better effectiveness retains enough of the rights of those captured, who end up with neither the rights of criminals who belong in U.S. custody nor the rights of P.O.W.s captured from an actual enemy nation with a genuine war. Those are very broad questions that need some kind of answer before we can be sure how to answer specific questions, in my view. This is a unique situation, and safeguards set up for different situations may apply, but they may not, and we need to reach a consensus on that. We’re making some progress toward that, but I also think people on both sides of the move toward a consensus have made wrong decisions at various points, including both the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration, not to mention several judicial decisions that I thought were crazy.
January 11th, 2010 | 10:45 am | #8
Frank says: That is — it makes it sound like war is itself an illegitimate function of Government.
Yes, but Coyle’s question was about weather it is legitimate for Gospel believing Christians to advocate for their government to torture people. It is relevant, and it even applies to the function of war too. War is not always just, you know.
January 11th, 2010 | 10:48 am | #9
Franks says: I would expect — and demand, insofar as it is in my power to do that as a citizen — that he be interrogated with prejudice until everything he knows about the networks supporting Al-Qaida was laid bare.
That is because you assume torture is a means to reliable and trustworthy information. But there is no good reason to believe this. It is amazing how much a pass this assumption is given in these discussions.
January 11th, 2010 | 11:40 am | #10
See this story for details: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051103412.html
January 11th, 2010 | 11:56 am | #11
Adam, there have been lots of people saying that, and there have been lots of people saying the opposite. Both groups have included experts who know the relevant information better than any of us. Given that, I wouldn’t believe either side without an impartial look at all the data backing up their claims.
What strikes me as particularly compelling for the other side is that the data supporting your claim has been more publicly available and has met some criticism, while the data supporting the other side has been buried by the Obama Administration and not released, despite Dick Cheney’s urging that it be released, because he says it shows beyond any doubt that the techniques approved in the controversial memos did in fact lead to information they wouldn’t have gotten in any other way.
January 11th, 2010 | 12:13 pm | #12
I think Heather MacDonald’s How to Interrogate Terrorists is a must-read for anyone thinking through this issue. She explains how limited military interrogators were until Bush expanded their capabilities, arguing that when Bush was pressured into removing those expanded abilities we ended up with worthless interrogations.
There may be a debate over whether these techniques count as torture. She says waterboarding might count as torture but none of the rest. I don’t think they legally should count as torture, but they’re certainly torture in people’s ordinary understanding of that term. But it’s a separate question whether those techniques are morally allowable or even morally required, and she argues that they’re necessary.
I should say that she wrote this before the CIA memos were released, when the discussion of waterboarding was only rumored, and she’s talking about military interrogators, not CIA interrogators. Most of the information she gives was totally outside my radar before I read this piece, and I include it in my required readings when I teach this issue in my applied ethics classes.
January 11th, 2010 | 3:45 pm | #13
Adam –
First of all, it’s nice to have people who are reasonable interacting on this, so nice to see you here.
Here’s a list of four activities:
[1] Making someone stand up on their feet for 16-24 hours, occationally yelling at them.
[2] Questioning a prisoner until he is exhausted (maybe 36 hours), then berating him on a matter of conscience that he would otherwise dismiss if he were not exhausted and hungry.
[3] Shouting and poking in the chest.
[4] Offering someone a chocolate bar in exchange for their cooperation.
Do any of these qualify as “torture”? Which ones, and why?
January 11th, 2010 | 4:15 pm | #14
Joe said this:
It’s funny that the guys locked up in GitMo don’t see themselves as “non-combatants”. It’s well-documented that they are not simply prisoners but hostile aggressors who happen to be incarcerated.
You are arguing that someone who has been detained is inherently helpless and therefore defeated in the military sense. Here’s how I perceive what you’re reasoning, Joe — which I will admit on the front side is not how you see what you’re arguing for. You’re saying that if a company of Iraqi troups have a group of Jihadist combatants holed up in a single building, the Iraqi troups should put their guns down because they have won. The fight is over.
The problem is that the Jihadists aren’t going to stop fighting just because they’re now trapped.
This response seems to reflect a shallow view of what war looks like — it seems to think that the enemy is just like me, a middle-class guy who has something to lose. The people we are talking about here have foresworn the world and have nothing to lose.
January 11th, 2010 | 4:18 pm | #15
Frank,
Those are good questions, and I am inclined to believe that none of those simpliciter are something I would consider torture. But taken together in an environment where violence and fear and prevalent they can easily move into another realm. Such was the case with the Abu Ghraib scandal.
They also are connected to a legal problem–the problem of due process. If we found them to be used on a detainee that was wrongly detained then we would find such practices detestable. These things are brought to bear on people we presume to be guilty having information we want.
I know there is a complex legal argument about how due process relates to terrorists, but it is it worth sacrificing our dearest principles for ones we reject to protect them? It doesn’t make any sense.
January 11th, 2010 | 4:22 pm | #16
Everyone: Take a look at this episdone of Frontline. It is highly relevant to our discussion.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/view/
January 11th, 2010 | 4:39 pm | #17
Frank,
“Steve hays pointed this out in his back-and-forth with JMR, and I want to underscore something: this is simply a prejudicial way of putting the question. It’s exactly like asking, “how are we as Christians reflecting the Gospel in our lives when we ask our government to murder enemy soldiers during war?” That is — it makes it sound like war is itself an illegitimate function of Government.”
I would suggest, however, that “war” and “torture” are two different things, and that the questions “should Christians condone war as a legitimate function of government?” and “should Christians condone torture as a legitimate function of government?” are two different questions. Perhaps even radically different ones, with radically different answers. (i.e. “yes” to the former, depending on circumstances, and “no” to the latter, regardless of circumstances.)
I don’t know if this is a useful parallel or not (if not, I’m happy to drop it) but I don’t believe that the Romans torturing Christians (leaving out outright execution for the moment) was a simple case of a government missing the mark. That is, it wasn’t that the Roman Empire was exercising a legitimate power, just on the wrong people, it was a case of the Roman Empire doing something inherently wicked regardless of the torturee. So taking out “Christian” and substituting “Parthian during a time of war” would not have suddenly made the activity acceptable.
But what also gets hidden here is another presupposition: that somehow Government is a legitimate vehicle for the Gospel. That is — the Government is itself a means to spreading the Gospel, and must conform to the Gospel standard of behavior (love, forgive, etc.). That’s simply not the government’s purview.
I agree and disagree with you on this. The government definitely is not a means of spreading the Gospel or to be considered an arm of the church or anything like that. But, my question is more along the lines of “what should a Christian encourage the government to do, particularly in a republic?” I have a hard time seeing a justification for giving “torture” as an answer to that question.
January 11th, 2010 | 5:05 pm | #18
Adam –
There’s no due process in a firefight, either, my friend. You are confusing a military enemy with an innocent citizen.
January 11th, 2010 | 5:15 pm | #19
Brother Coyle saith:
It’s an interesting proposition. For the sake of this discussion, I’d be willing to say that while they are different questions, they have the same answer.
It was in fact the right tool for the wrong purpose in the former case — because while punishment is the prerogative of government, the presupposition is justice, as I have said nearly-innumerable times already.
Punishment as an act of justice is warranted. That is frankly an irrefutable statement. That one does not want to frame it that way speaks to one’s blind spot in this matter. One can list 10,000 ways which something may be an unjust use of authority and the power to punish, but it doesn’t make the responsibility to punish somehow now an act conducted with powder-puffs.
You have to work that into your “yeah but” list of things we allegedly ought not to do and see what the Government ought to do to wage war.
The Christian must exhort the government to to the arbiter of justice. If we start there, we can reason the rest out.
January 11th, 2010 | 5:43 pm | #20
Frank,
Brother Coyle saith
I’ll tell you what I tell my students- if you aren’t comfortable just calling me “Coyle,” call me “Your Holiness.”
They haven’t yet ;)
Seriously, thanks for the thoughtful answers, I’ll try my best to respond:
The presupposition is justice, as I have said nearly-innumerable times already. Punishment as an act of justice is warranted. That is frankly an irrefutable statement
Can I try rephrasing this question? I don’t know if it will bring us to agreement, but maybe we can at least agree as to where we disagree:
1) The government should be just.
2) Punishment is a legitimate aspect of justice for the government.
3) Torture is a legitimate form of punishment.
Is that a fair enough summary of your position?
If so, then 3) is what we disagree on, and I’m not sure there’s much room for compromise beyond that…
January 11th, 2010 | 6:35 pm | #21
Excerpts from the (classified Secret) CIA handbook KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, July 1963, pages 92-94
IX. The Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of Resistant Sources
For centuries interrogators have employed various methods of inducing physical weakness: prolonged constraint; prolonged exertion; extremes of heat, cold, or moisture; and deprivation or drastic reduction of food or sleep. Apparently the assumption is that lowering the source’s physiological resistance will lower his psychological capacity for opposition. If this notion were valid, however, it might reasonably be expected that those subjects who are physically weakest at the beginning of an interrogation would be the quickest to capitulate, a concept not supported by experience. The available evidence suggests that resistance is sapped principally by psychological rather than physical pressures…
In brief, it appears probable that the techniques of inducing debility become counter-productive at an early stage. The discomfort, tension, and restless search for an avenue of escape are followed by withdrawal symptoms, a turning away from external stimuli, and a sluggish unresponsiveness. Another objection to the deliberate inducing of debility is that prolonged exertion, loss of sleep, etc., themselves become patterns to which the subject adjusts through apathy…
Interrogatees who are withholding but feel qualms of guilt and a secret desire to yield are likely to become intractable in made to endure pain. The reason is that they can then interpret the pain as punishment and hence expiation. There are also persons who enjoy pain and its anticipation and who will keep back information that they might otherwise divulge if they are given reason to expect that withholding will result in the punishment that they want. Persons of considerable moral or intellectual stature often find pain inflicted by others a confirmation of the belief that they are in the hands of inferiors, and their resolve not to submit is strengthened.
Intense pain is quite likely to produce false confessions, concocted as a means of escaping from distress. A time-consuming delay results, while investigation is conducted and the admissions are proven untrue. During this respite the interrogatee can pull himself togehter. He may even use the time to think up new, more complex “admissions” that take still longer to disprove. KUBARK is especially vulnerable to such tactics because the interrogation is conducted for the sake of information and not for police purposes.
January 11th, 2010 | 7:09 pm | #22
Frank: There’s no due process in a firefight, either, my friend. You are confusing a military enemy with an innocent citizen.
My point is to say that due process is an important staple of American justice, and a true idea of justice in general. Presuming people to be guilty and putting the burden of proof of on them to prove their innocence is a fundamentally unjust process of doing law.
In a firefight, we are warranted to believe that people shooting at us want to harm us for obvious reasons. When we have captured and subdued the firefighter and presume he knows where other firefighters are and intentionally harm him so we can find out we are violating our own values and a sacred principle of justice–we must bear the burden of proof that incurs guilt so as to justifies punishment.
Don’t you believe this is a very important point and that anyone under our power should be treated as such? When dealing with heresy in the church, and a Presbyterian court meets to deal with the issue at hand do we not prefer that the accusers make the case rather than the accused? If we were consistent with this value I we could be proud to be Americans, because it would be manifestly just and justice is what makes America good–not the other way around.
January 12th, 2010 | 7:41 am | #23
At least the fiction that a biblical mandate for toture is apt in light of “…all the relevant citations from the OT, the Gospels, and Paul” has been dropped. That puts the discussion back on the ground where JMR started it.
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