Five Before Chaos

Actually, no. And neither are most conservatives, as I’ve pointed out previously, especially when they try to be. The latest, via ThinkProgress about some Foxnews dumbass who’s just sooo funny that they gave him the 2 am slot, who thinks waterboarding is a “good thing”:

Now, waterboarding might be torture, but as long as people I hate also hate waterboarding, then I love it more than life itself. … So I cherish waterboarding. I want to make it our national sport, our national bird. I want to make the waterboard the state flower of Vermont, instead of the Birkenstock.

There’s the obvious brain damage thing where he thinks waterboarding and Birkenstocks are somehow flowers (or wait – he’s trying to be funny!). The piece also says how John Ashcroft would be willing to try being waterboarded. Where do I sign up to help on that one?

As torture increasingly becomes just another household word in America, I’m finding myself increasingly disturbed that there’s not more outrage from the public over this. And, no, some talent-free hack making cracks about it isn’t really the issue, here. That kind of stuff is expected, just like they find “Larry the Cable Guy” funny.  It’s scary, because I think that many are getting numb to it, because we’re still so far removed from any of the pain we’re causing in theis world. And this whole think with Pelosi going to the CIA and being briefed on it was jolting, to say the least. So what now? No clichés, please.

UPDATED below the jump.

It looks like this might is going to have to become a regular column on here, at the rate she’s going, bi-weekly. This time, our crazy, clueless conservative Charity, over at She’s Right, just really “isn’t sure” if torture is wrong. Now if you’re a regular reader of hers, you know she’s, uh, logically challenged, to be PC for the sake of snark. Actually, logic seems to be conspicuously absent over there. Put your brain around this and tell me if it starts to hurt:

If I was to take the premise that no credible intelligence comes from torture as true, along with the premise that credible intelligence was obtained using waterboarding, wouldn’t I have to conclude that waterboarding is not torture?

It looks like a form of torture to me. I mean, what else would you call it?

The only option left is to declare one of my premises to be false. If it is false that torture does not produce credible intelligence information, and in fact it does, that sure does undermine the most reasonable argument against the use of torture.

Just a side note here, that a civilized people should not use torture is not a reasonable argument. It is an emotional argument. If we based our laws on whether or not a practice makes some people feel icky when presented with a detailed description, we would have to end legalized abortion, now wouldn’t we?

So where does that leave waterboarding?

The answer is, I don’t really know. I think it is disturbing, but that in and of itself is not a reason that it should not be done.

No, it wasn’t one of George Bush’s speeches, although the flow is strikingly similar. See, like most of her ilk, she fails to grasp what humane behavior is, whether it’s not letting kids go without healthcare, or torturing people, whatever. And of course, torture of a living, breathing sentient human being is no different than aborting a fetus. Gotta throw that one in there.

Civilized people do not torture. That’ s part of what makes us civilized. What’s so hard to understand about that?

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