Blog against torture day

[netmouse]

So today is the day when we're supposed to influence the world by blogging against torture. I kind of feel like when I'm asked to write to my congressman to tell him how I feel. My senator is CARL LEVIN. I don't have to tell him how I feel --he and I are AS ONE on the political spectrum and my asking him to vote on something a certain way will not change his vote because it was already going to be what I was going to ask for.

Here, I'm sure a wider group of people read this, and I don't expect us to be AS ONE, but still. You guys all get this, right? Torture is wrong and it doesn't work. Making it doubly wrong.

We have a number of documents both internal to the US and international that supposedly stand to tell us and the world that torture is something we WILL NOT DO, not to our own citizens, and not to others. We also have a president and administration who like to ignore most of the pieces of paper that have writing on them abridging their power to diddle wherever they like. But we're going to fix that, right?

Right?

Because it's WRONG.

That and it's STUPID if we want a solid basis from which to argue that OUR soldiers and ambassadors and everyday citizens should not have to fear torture in other countries. Which of course they should not. Nobody should have to fear that. It should, like, go away. Bzzt. (Imagine that Ruby Red radio guy in the Fifth Element waving his hand there. Go Away. Bzzt.)*

Are we all clear on that? Does anyone have a different opinion/perspective,etc.? Because I sure don't want to believe I'm preaching to the choir when there's actually someone who needs speaking to.

So speak up if you disagree.

* reference corrected. Thanks Matt!

Comments

[cos]

I don't think either of those metrics is really meaningful. Mere voting doesn't tell you a whole lot unless you know the context: what the bill meant, what amendments were and weren't offerred, what other options were being discussed, who tried to organize what with other Senators, etc. Voting with or apart from the majority of one's party is even trickier. In both cases, it depends heavily on who's in the majority, since the party that controls the chamber can decide what legislation goes to a vote in what order, and can arrange that to either drive wedges in the minority party's voting (if they want to make something "bipartisan" or overcome a filibuster threat) or to unify the other party, if they want a strict party line vote on something. There's also, of course, the substance of the legislation: in general, I support most of the legislation that a majority of Democrats have supported in the past several Congresses and therefore I want to see a Senator who voted for those pieces of legislation most of the time (so I would prefer a Democrat who voted with his/her party more often).

As for McCain, no, I've followed him closely for years and the brush I paint him with is entirely fair. I used to respect him a lot (though I mostly didn't agree with him on policy) and was extremely disappointed when he made his big choice in 2004 to make peace with Bush and actively campaign all-out for him. That also entailed a bunch of other things, like dropping his opposition to the Christian right, something I used to respect him for. And, yes, it entailed dropping his opposition to torture, too, which is unconscionable. He did it all for the Iraq war. To him, supporting the continuation of the occupation of Iraq was such a high priority that it was worth compromising most of his principles and repudiating much of what he stood for in the past. He is a sad, sad man, and contemptible, despite his occasional flashes of good.