On torture and the Right

Sometimes, when I catch myself writing things like this, I wonder if I should tone it down a notch when speaking about people who are, after all, in some relevant sense my de facto political allies. Then I am reminded that silence is not an option:

It goes without saying that Yglesias is being overly simplistic when he takes this phenomenon as evidence that

If you’re a conservative, you like torture. If you’re against torture, you’re not a conservative.

And there are, of course, similar things one could point to in order to illustrate the callousness and stupidity of the Left. But these observations, and the brazen attempt by so many on the movement Right to belittle torture opponents and make support for (and indeed outright pride in) the desecration of the human person into a criterion for being “one of us”, give all the more reason not to bite one’s tongue in the face of the horrors of the present day. The Bush Administration and its deputies should be brought to swift and appropriate justice, and those in the media who have cheered them on and made excuses for their cruelty deserve no further hearing until they have owned up to, and made a due penance for, the evil they have enabled. Until then, they can all go and waterboard their damn selves.

[UPDATE: Dan K. proposes something we might do with the people who go in for this sort of torture chic.]

Filed under: conservatism, torture