The Inversion of Values

A reader in my comboxes releases a gush of tears for the unspeakable cruelty and cowardice of a blogger who criticizes the unjust policies of a rich and powerful man. His thesis: unless a blogger can obtain a bill of indictment against a former president, he is unspeakably evil and cruel for denouncing his war crimes. No. Really:

Tom. No trial is necessary where all that is being done is gum-flapping. Obviously, anyone can flap their gums. Accusing people of crimes without being willing to back up the accusation in a court of law is cowardly and despicable.

So: when somebody is President of the United States, his decisions to order the torture (sometimes leading to the death) of some guy who may or may not be guilty of something is above reproach and subject to the most exacting and stringent defenses. If a blogger can’t haul the President into court and obtain a conviction, then the very idea of criticizing his documented policies is cowardly and despicable.

However, when some poor guy is tortured in order to find out if they might possibly be guilty of something (as, for instance, Dilawar and Maher Arar were sent for torture on the say so the Bush Administration) that’s not cowardly and despicable at all. Instead, we are told:

And a last note, on waterboarding. I don’t hold a brief for the practice, and I am not qualified to say whether or not it is useful in interrogation. I can hold my breath for more than 40 seconds, though. Shoot, back in high school we used to have contests to see who could go the longest, watching the second hand on the wall clock go round and round. Two, three minutes. So, a wet cloth on my face for 40 seconds? That’s ‘torture’? Really?

One hardly knows what to say to somebody with such dramatic double standards, nor how to answer somebody who says “I don’t hold a brief for waterboarding” and who then proceeds to hold a brief for waterboarding. One could point out that, yes, waterboarding is torture and that if you “don’t hold a brief” for it you shouldn’t make yourself a liar in the next breath by defending it. One could point out yet again that there are other forms of torture besides it–torture which has resulted in the death of prisoners. One could even point out that the Bush Administration has shielded CIA murderers from prosecution.

Oh, but then we hit that double standard again. Poor people can be tortured in order to find out if they might possibly be guilty of something and the Bush (and Obama) administrations can lie about them after the fact if it turns out they are innocent (as with Arar). But to even suggest that a rich and powerful man is guilty of something, even when the evidence is plain to see, is cowardly and despicable.

Blessed are you who are rich, for you shall have Faithful Conservative Catholic[TM] defenders, no matter what you do.

Woe to you who are poor, because whatever we do to you, you probably had it coming.