Why Won't They Attack?

One theme I've seen on both conservative and liberal blogging sites is how much better things would be if the [insert political party here] would only take the gloves off and attack the other side. Why say "My opponent's statements aren't always well supported by factual evidence," when you can just call him a liar? We all know he is! He's also a traitor, coward, moron, pervert, etc...
The reason is simple. Ultimately, these people need to work together. While the election lasts for one day, the governance lasts for 2-, 4-, or 6-years. Most of the Senators who start out on the election trail have to return to the Senate. The only way for the Senate, or any governing body, to function in the long run is to maintain a sense of civility and mutual respect. It may be only a thin veneer of civility, but sometimes that's all that's required. So the candidates refrain from the truly harsh, personal attacks during the short campaign out of deference for the long term good of the Senate. They have to walk a fine line, being aggressive enough to fire up the base and get out the vote, but not so aggressive as to harm the working relationship. To do otherwise would be like a chef burning down his restaurant because he didn't like the soup du jour.
It might not be a bad idea for We The People to act the same way. Maybe we shouldn't call so loudly for the red meat. Maybe we should not work so hard to bait and insult each other on the blogs and instead exchange information and our differing points of view in an honest and respectful manner. Maybe a thin veneer of civility is all that's required. After all, the politicians may have to work together but we have to live together.

Protecting the Best of Us

It's easy to express the high ideals of individual rights in a broad and abstract sense. It's harder to do so in the real world, especially in the presence of danger. Fear tempts us to trade in our morality for security. People start to think that violations of individual rights might make sense if they keep us safer. Nothing is off the table, including torture. There is no shortage of people explaining in very practical terms why what we're doing is acceptable. The explanations take many forms. Yet each of them has a very practical refutation.

It's Not Really Torture: The first line of defense for any torturer is to deny, even to themselves, that they do it. Nobody can admit that they torture because the political cost is too high. So people use euphemisms, and rely on legalistic definitions to argue that the specific techniques used aren't really torture. Our government uses the term "enhanced interrogation techniques." Is it a cover for torture? It's hard to say just from the name. We rely on convention and tradition to decide when the line has been crossed.

One of my uncles knew a missionary named Larry Zellers who was held prisoner in North Korea during the Korean War. Larry Zellers wrote of his experiences in "In Enemy Hands", and described the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, food and water deprivation, psychological stress, and repeated beatings. We in America have no doubt that the techniques used by the North Koreans was torture. But when we use stress positions, deprive people of food and water, and induce psychological stress we claim it's not torture. What's the difference? It turns out the techniques the United States of America is using today in Guantanamo come directly from the techniques developed by the Chinese and used in Korea. The techniques were lifted directly from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese coercive techniques designed to illicit false confessions from American prisoners. Anyone defending the US techniques currently in use must also then admit that the techniques used in Korea were acceptable. My Dad is active in the Korean War Veterans of America (KWVA) . I'd like to see anyone go into one of my Dad's KWVA meetings and explain how the Chinese techniques weren't really torture. Go ahead, I dare you.

We Need The Information: The next line of defense for the torturer is to claim the ends justifies the means. We need to do whatever it takes to win. We need the information. Of course, information gained through torture has been shown over and over to have no bearing to the truth.

You'd think we would have learned our lesson a long time ago. Like over three hundred years ago, in Salem, Massachusetts. A number of people confessed to being witches, knowing the confession meant death, and were hung for it. Do you believe that those who were hung were really witches? Do you believe they thought they were witches? I don't. The confessions were brought out under torture. The information was wrong. You'd think we would have learned the lesson again in Korea and Vietnam. Many US servicemen signed confessions admitting that they were war criminals. Do you think those soldiers were war criminals? Do you think they thought they were? I don't. You don't have to agree with John McCain's politics to see the shame and guilt he still lives with for signing his confession. The information was wrong.

So why do we think that the Chinese methods designed to get Americans to lie will get non-Americans to tell the truth? The "information" is almost certainly wrong. It has no value, but it does have a cost. Our strength has always come from our respect for individual rights. This respect for the person, no matter his station in life, is probably the single strongest reason for our success as a Nation. This focus on the individual has served us well when threatened by the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. The populations of many of those regimes were, in a way, on our side, because in the end we were on their side. Now, once more, we are engaged in trying to win the hearts and minds of a large, diverse population. When we accept torture, we throw our greatest strength away.

They Deserve It: The last line of defense is to claim that the torturer's victims are so awful, their actions so heinous, that they don't deserve protection from torture. They are the worst of the worst and deserve whatever they get. Those that disagree "just don't get it" or care more about terrorist's rights than America. It's an easy sell because people are so angry over the horror that was done and fearful that it may occur again. What people don't understand is that this is not about them. This is about us. Who we are. What we stand for. Torture is outside our system. Once you accept that torture can be applied to anyone, even the most heinous person, you make torture a part of the system. And once inside it will devour the system from within.

People think we can draw circles around certain groups of people and say "We only torture them and it's OK because of what they've done." But circles change. We only torture known terrorists. We only torture suspected terrorists. We only torture those who might lead us to suspected terrorists. We do nothing because we think we are not affected. We are all familiar with the poem that starts "In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist..." The circle grows. New threats appear. More justifications for using torture appear and the bar is lowered each time. Cop killers, those who threaten cops, those who resist arrest. Child killers and pedophiles. Drug lords, drug dealers or drug users who may lead us to dealers. Criminals and suspected criminals of all types. This tears out the heart and soul of the thing most precious to America - the insistence on the rights of the individual. In the end, each and any one of us can be victimized. Taken, tortured, confessed, and then the confession used to justify the act of torture. It can happen to anyone. By protecting the worst of us, we protect the best of us.

Reform Who?

The Republican campaigners have chosen to focus a lot of attention on reform. By definition, reform refers to dismantling a long-standing political system or process. So who are they reforming? George Bush has been President for the past eight years. Republicans have been in the Oval Office for twenty of the past twenty-eight years. Republicans held both the House and Senate for twelve years prior to the Democratic party gaining a slight majority in 2006. The long-standing power structures are Republican. John McCain himself has been in the Senate for the past twenty years and was implicated in the Keating 5 scandal in the 1980s.

Sarah Palin herself is already under investigation for abuse of power of the Governor's office, has ties to Senator Stevens, the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere", and the Alaskan Independence Party. These issues may be resolved in her favor, but it's hardly the environment in which to run a reform ticket.

Political campaigns thrive on powerful, emotional words. You will hear both parties using them to motivate voters to get out to the polls, preferably without stopping to think. In both cases, though, it is our responsibility to stop. Think. This choice of themes seems misguided. If enough people stop to think and ask "Who are we reforming?" it could be bad for the McCain-Palin ticket.