Ticking Time Bomb Scenario

A group of sinister people heedless of their fellow human beings and focused entirely on their own cramped world of political gain and ideological in-fighting are working in concert and threaten the very safety of the nation. We know that their actions threaten to inflict grave harm on thousands of Americans and perhaps even death on some of them. It’s urgent! It’s a HUGE CRISIS! We have NO TIME TO LOSE! WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DRASTIC NOW IN ORDER TO SAVE OURSELVES!!!!

And yet, because these people are well-heeled rich politicians in Congress and the Executive Branch, there is (strangely) no call to waterboard them, subject them to beatings, or freezing, or suffocating stress positions or any of the rest of the panoply of “enhanced legislation techniques” from our advocates of salvation through leviathan by any means necessary. Somehow, we miraculously intuit that this approach will not produce fruitful results. And we do all this, despite the fact that these people have the power to inflict far more damage on the weak, the US and the global economy than any of the people whom torture-defending conservatives labored to justify torturing for most of the previous decade.

I am not (I emphasize for the humor-impaired) advocating we waterboard Congress and the Prez in order to resolve the problem. (I favor forcing them into a brightly lit room with no air-conditioning, a bread and water diet, portapotties, and absolutely no visitors or pay, with an hourly deduction of one million dollars per politician from their 3669% personal wealth increase, given to the pay pool of American combat troops, till they get their theatre of the absurd act together).

No, I am merely pointing out that the emotional manipulation of the ticking time bomb scenario relies entirely on the Ox Gore Principle. When it’s some swarthy stranger we want to torture, we think this fantasy is “realistic”. When it’s your tribal member, you suddenly remember that the panic you cultivate with Ticking Time Bomb fantasies is self-hypnosis aimed to excuse doing something gravely immoral, rash and stupid. In short, Ticking Time Bomb fantasies are a cover for immoral cowardice and folly.

Conversely, failure to subject our Inside the Beltway Bubble elites to serious punishment for their contempt for the common good, even when they bring the common good to the edge of catastrophe, is a fine illustration of our culture’s demented ruthlessness to the weak and tender compassion for the powerful, rich, arrogant, isolated and irresponsible.

There’s an old joke that you can’t do a Nativity play in DC because its impossible to find three wise men and a virgin. I sometimes think that in our present political culture, if Our Lady were to appear atop the Washington Monument and recite the Magnificat, she would only get as far as “He has cast down the mighty in their arrogance and lifted up the lowly”. At this point, a scream would go up from the lobbyists, pols on both sides of the aisle, corporate interests, and media servants of the duopoly: “Tea Party Fanatic! Socialist! Class envy! Class warfare!” and the TV feed would be cut.

It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. – G.K. Chesterton