The Government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. - Mark Twain

Ticking Time Bomb Redux

by Hal_10000

A post from Sullivan reminded me of something I forgot in my recent posting on the “ticking time bomb torture” scenario:

Yes, to thrash a horse in advanced stages of rigor mortis, as a philosophical matter, this might, in a million-to-one scenario, still allow a president to authorize illegal torture if the entire republic was at stake or if a major city was about to go down in nuclear flames, and we knew we had an individual who knew how to stop it. But the president would still subsequently have to subject himself and all those who did such a thing to legal punishment. That is what the rule of law means, guys. It means there is no exception. We either live in a republic of laws or the imperium of one man. We cannot live simultaneously under both. The oath of the president is to enforce such laws, not to avoid them

My use of the phrase may be wrong (Brian?) but I believe the phrase that applies here is Force Majeure. We don’t need to write a ticking time bomb exemption into torture law because, basically, it already exists. If the President decides the situation is extraordinary, he can authorize breaking the law and torturing someone. However, having done so, he must face the consequences of his actions (this is what was, in a different time, known as “sacrifice"). He would have to explain to Congress what he had authorized and why and let them decide whether to impeach him or not.

People have brought up similar situations involving police in real life. A kidnapped girl, a suspect in custody, a ticking clock on her life. Cops have extracted critical information in these circumstances using harsh methods. But they have always agreed to pay the price for doing so.

It’s called “sacrifice”.

This brushes against the hypocrisy of our current Administration. To win the War on Terror, we are told we need to make sacrifices—blood and treasure lost in the sands of Iraq, civil liberties restricted, nasty unpleasant immigration that is costing our nation $100 billion a year, and torture. But, for some reason, our leaders never have to make any sacrifices. They don’t have to cancel any “popular” programs to pay for the war. They don’t have to pay the price of breaking or bypassing the law. They don’t have to pay a price at the polls for telling us things we don’t want to hear, such as that we might be in Iraq for a decade.

No. Sacrifice is for the plebes. For the masses. For us. Not for King George.

Comments

Posted by Thrill on 11/02/07 at 11:27 AM from

He would have to explain to Congress what he had authorized and why and let them decide whether to impeach him or not.

I don’t think Bush loses any sleep over it at all, given that the Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress for almost a year and haven’t got around to actually outlawing waterboarding.

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