A reader in deep denial writes about this post<\/a>:<\/p>\n What is this the 60th post bashing dumb Conservatives; yet when the Washington Post points out the obvious fact the Madame Pelosi knew about this what do you say?<\/a> Nothing other than a few lines about everyone should be prosecuted. Yet you wonder why people call you biased.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The moment a battalion of Pelosi-defenders appears in my comboxes to try to deny the bleedin\u2019 obvious, I will have more to say. Till then, what do you want me to do?: repeat again that any Dem who approved the Bush Torture regime should also be prosecuted? Okay:<\/p>\n Any Dem who approved the Bush Torture regime should also be prosecuted. I\u2019ve got no problem at all saying that. It\u2019s just that I see no need to repeat it since I don\u2019t have any Pelosi-defenders beseiging me with denials, excuses, evasions, and doubletalk.<\/p>\n You se, my time is taken up with conservatives, not Dems, trying to deny the bleedin\u2019 obvious. You appear to be one of them.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve got no problem at all with prosecuting Pelosi or any other Dem who signed off on the Bush torture regime. But the fact remains that it was the *Bush* torture regime, deny it how you will.<\/p>\n The funny thing about the strange new claim that I am somehow a Secret Democrat for failing to sign each post with a ritual denunciation of Pelosi is the new layer of self-contradiction being added here. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not torture. It\u2019s not wrong. Besides, it works, even if it is torture (which it isn\u2019t).<\/p>\n And Democrats are evil for approving of it! Why isn\u2019t Shea demanding their prosecution more?\u201d<\/p>\n Make up your mind. One way to do that is to stop talking nonsense and just hold a coherent position like \u201cIt\u2019s torture. It\u2019s a war crime. Anybody who approved it should be prosecuted. It was pushed by the Bush Administration and the Dems immorally played along. Now they are hypocritically pretending to be shocked and making noises about prosecution, but will never actually do anything because they will never allow themselves to be held to account for approving of Bush war crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n See! There\u2019s enough disgusting hypocrisy to go around for both parties! That\u2019s why I refuse to support either of them.<\/p>\n However, the most disgusting (and stupid) hypocrisy is to claim a prolife mantle while fighting tooth and nail to support torture of prisoners. It is to chuck the Church\u2019s teaching about the dignity of human life right out the window.<\/p>\n Yes, yes. I know all about the distinction between guilty terrorists (at least, you think<\/a> they might<\/a> be guilty<\/a> of something or other\u2013until you find out they aren\u2019t<\/a> and have to lie to cover it all up) and innocent babies.<\/p>\n Guess what? Guilty terrorists retain their fundamental human dignity (you know, that \u201cdignity of the human person\u201d that used to be the basis for all our prolife arguments?). If you predicate that human beings lose that dignity according to the level of how guilty you suspect they might be of some sin or crime, then you are basically declaring open season on human dignity. As Tom Kreitzberg says:<\/p>\n To say, \u201cI\u2019d commit a terrible sin against a terrible sinner in order to save five million innocents,\u201d is not to risk a slippery slope. It is to declare that any and every point on the slope \u2014 a sin of any gravity upon a person of any guilt for a good of any magnitude \u2014 is open for negotiation.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not God we\u2019re negotiating with.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You are also moving the sentencing phase of the trial to the investigation phase by declaring that torture is punishment for crime and not (as you previously said) merely for \u201cobtaining information\u201d. That\u2019s what you mean when you say the guy you are torturing is \u201cguilty\u201d compared to the aborted baby. You are also overlooking that little clause about \u201ccruel and unusual punishment\u201d.<\/p>\n If you backtrack from this and try to pretend that you *aren\u2019t* advocating torture because the suspect is \u201cguilty\u201d of something but merely to \u201cobtain information\u201d, you are basically laying the groundwork for the torture of innocents<\/a>.<\/p>\n But mostly, you are making a mockery of anything like a coherent Catholic prolife position. At best, you are declaring yourself to be, not prolife but anti-abortion while entirely abandoning the concept of the dignity of human life upon which the Church\u2019s whole case against abortion rests. Good luck with that.<\/p>\n