mycatharsis.com

Sort of … thru extensive use of minimizing (emphasis mine)….

“I suppose it’s the same thing about so-called torture. Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the Constitution?” he asked.

“It would be absurd to say you couldn’t do that. And once you acknowledge that, we’re into a different game” Scalia said. “How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?”

The ticking time bomb scenario, which in itself is a mere hypothetical, a worst case scenario that is an admitted deviation from normalcy. And even then, Scalia does not talk about tipping a prisoner upside down and pouring water over him till he’s absolutely convinced he’s drowning. Nor does he address worse abuses that we might turn a blind eye towards in a torturing society, such as the cutting open of a prisoners’s body, followed by pouring hot, stinging liquid into his wounds. Both of these, it is fair to say, are much more substantial than a ’smack in the face.’ And it is extremely doubtful that either of the two methods above were used in the ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario described by Scalia.

His example may or may not be a compelling argument, I suppose it depends on how you feel about the issue. And he does ask the pertinent questions, namely how bad is the threat, and what exactly is being done.  But the reality of what we have ALREADY done in the name of the War on Terror displays the folly of going down this road at all. Namely, governments always overstep their bounds, and even horrid policies are by and large EXPANDED by our government (War on Drugs, et al), much moreso than being reduced or reversed. The old slippery slope, which, I have to admit I don’t like when applied to the actions of citizens (”we can’t legalize gay marriage because we’ll be marrying dogs next”, or “legalize weed and everyone will be smoking meth overnight”), but is entirely appropriate to apply to the giving of powers to the government, especially for conservatives, who used to have a distrust of government power. Ten years ago, the thought that state and local governments all over the U.S. would be banning smoking from all public places seemed Orwellian, if not perhaps absurd. Today, the thought that we’d torture anybody who isn’t a terrorist seems patently absurd. Maybe illegals would be next, they’re not citizens, after all. Or maybe sex offenders.  Then maybe people dealing hard drugs to children. Then maybe those dealing any hard drugs at all.  … Once we accept the idea of using, as Scalia puts it, ’so-called torture’ against  it won’t be long to make torture of citizens not sound quite so absurd in 10 years time, especially if people with the power and influence of Antonin Scalia continue to use this kind of logic to justify it.