{"id":55921,"date":"2014-11-21T00:52:27","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T07:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=55921"},"modified":"2014-12-28T19:46:35","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T02:46:35","slug":"the-difference-between-dick-cheney-and-lakechia-schonta-stanley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2014\/11\/the-difference-between-dick-cheney-and-lakechia-schonta-stanley.html","title":{"rendered":"The Difference between Dick Cheney and Lakechia Schonta Stanley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026is that when he authorizes\u00a0drowning somebody and calls it \u201cdunking\u201d or a \u201csplash of water\u201d, or authorizes beating somebody and calls it \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d, conservatives hail him as a hero and repeat his Orwellian BS word for word as though it were gospel<\/a>. \u00a0When a black woman tries these \u201charmless\u201d tactics on her children, she gets 78 years in prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the children are innocent! \u00a0Torturing them is evil!\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservatives! \u00a0You are getting\u00a0your euphemistic lies all mixed up. \u00a0Remember! \u00a0It\u2019s not torture! \u00a0It\u2019s \u00a0\u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d. \u00a0And it\u2019s most certainly not punishment. \u00a0It\u2019s merely the most efficient way of getting vital information. Cheney wasn\u2019t doing this to our victims<\/s> prisoners in order to punish them. He was simply doing it in order to obtain information. \u00a0Totally different! \u00a0As Fr. Brian Harrison used to point out in his now-repudiated-yet-still-widely-cited-by-torture-lovers apologetic for the use of torture in interrogation,\u00a0if you compare what the 1984 UN\u00a0<\/span>Convention against Torture<\/a>\u00a0(of which, for what it\u2019s worth, the Holy See is a signatory) and the 1992\u00a0<\/span>Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/i>\u00a0say about torture, you will find they offer the following purposes of intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering as constitutive of torture:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
UN Convention<\/th>\nCatechism<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
\u201cobtaining\u2026information\u201d<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u201cobtaining\u2026a confession\u201d<\/td>\n\u201cextract confessions\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u201cpunishing\u2026for an act he\u2026has committed\u201d<\/td>\n\u201cpunish the guilty\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u201cintimidating or coercing\u201d<\/td>\n\u201cfrighten opponents\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u201cany reason based on discrimination\u201d<\/td>\n\u201csatisfy hatred\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Fr. Harrison suggests that the drafters of the\u00a0<\/span>Catechism<\/i>, \u201cwhile generally following the Convention\u2019s proscriptions, deliberately decided\u00a0<\/span>not<\/i>\u00a0to do so on [the] particular point\u201d of torture for obtaining information. Because it looks to Fr. Harrison \u201clike a deliberate decision on the part of church authorities, rather than a mere oversight or coincidence,\u201d he regards the morality of torture for obtaining information to be an open theological question.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I note, Fr. Harrison himself has since repudiated this logic<\/a>. \u00a0But torture apologists for Cheney such as Catholic Marc Thiessen<\/a> have long loved to claim that such things do not \u201crise to the level of torture\u201d and are undertaken, not out out malice or a desire to harm (indeed such things are not harmful at all, we are told, but are in fact spiritually\u00a0liberating. \u00a0No. Really<\/a>:<\/p>\n

At the end of the video below, Thiessen justifies the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods like dietary manipulation, sleep deprivation and stress positions by asserting that the captured terrorist Abu Zubaydah told interrogators after the fact that his own abuse was a good thing.<\/p>\n

After he was was waterboarded he thanked his interrogators for waterboarding him, and he said, \u201cYou must do this for all the brothers.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Thiessen\u2019s unnamed sources, Zubaydah thanked his interrogators for forcing him to the edge of what he could physically and mentally endure, thereby freeing him of his religious obligation to not talk. The logic of this argumentation, as they say in the business, shocks my conscience.<\/p>\n

Does it also follow that a victim of domestic violence who forgives her attacker\u2019s violence (or argues that it was justified) can also effectively erases the moral culpability? Is Thiessen unfamiliar with the reams of research about\u00a0the effects of Stockholm syndrome<\/a>, which drives victims to identify with their attackers and behave in ways contrary to their own rational physical and emotional interests? Should confessions made under threat of physical and emotional harm now suddenly be considered credible, or germane to a discussion of the morality of that harm?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So not only is waterboarding not torture, it is actually equivalent to\u00a0baptism, as conservative deep thinker Sarah Palin has pointed out<\/a>, to the wide applause of conservatives\u00a0dressed like this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So since it is clearly established in conservative thought that waterboarding and \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d are not torture and are not even forms of punishment, but are simply \u201cenhanced\u201d tools for the calm and rational obtainment of vital information, why is Ms. Stanley being locked away for 78 years instead of receiving Mr. Cheney\u2019s well-deserved honors, accolades and wealth? \u00a0Indeed, when will Caesar wake up to my point that if conservatives are right (as they invariably are), then he should not confine the blessings of enhanced interrogation merely to that proverbial \u201chandful of terrorists\u201d Cheney keeps talking about (no doubt, in his extreme humility, Cheney always ignores the 100+ people (that we know about) whom our non-torture techniques killed<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Nope. \u00a0Caesar should make \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d standard operating procedure against our own citizens. \u00a0After all, not every heel is in Iraq and Afghanistan. \u00a0And since it\u2019s not torture at all and is not done to punish but to gather information efficiently, why confine it to the supposed suspect in a crime? \u00a0Why not use it on his loved ones and children? \u00a0Why does the state get a monopoly on this harmless form of information-gathering? \u00a0Why *can\u2019t* parents do to their children\u2013for their own good, of course, what moral giant Dick Cheney says is completely harmless? \u00a0\u00a0After all, we used it, with Cheney\u2019s authority, against children abroad and you didn\u2019t say a word, O Enhanced Interrogation Advocate.<\/a><\/p>\n

So why not hail this woman has a hero and pioneer in the mold of Dick Cheney, a conservative heroine, and even a role model for Faithful Conservative Catholics. \u00a0After all, she upholds what has become a core belief of Movement Conservatism<\/a>\u2013and a core belief of Faithful Conservative Catholics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026is that when he authorizes\u00a0drowning somebody and calls it \u201cdunking\u201d or a \u201csplash of water\u201d, or authorizes beating somebody and calls it \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d, conservatives hail him as a hero and repeat his Orwellian BS word for word as though it were gospel. \u00a0When a black woman tries these \u201charmless\u201d tactics on her children, she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[556,44,650],"class_list":["post-55921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consequences-are-for-little-people","tag-consequentialism-on-parade","tag-na"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Difference between Dick Cheney and Lakechia Schonta Stanley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"...is that when he authorizes\u00a0drowning somebody and calls 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