What's getting to me about the Foley thing

[nancylebov]

As bad things go, what Foley did was only fair-to-middling bad. As a result of it, political careers will be ended and elections will probably be affected. There might be criminal charges.

At the same time, the US government has been torturing people, sometimes to death. It's quite plausible that this is still going on, what with all those prisoners being held in secret. A law has been passed making it legal to hold prisoners indefinitely in secret. This has not had nearly as much political effect as the Foley scandal, and the legitimizing of torture doesn't seem to be a big issue in the upcoming election.

I begin to suspect that I am surrounded by crazy people.

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Torturing people doesn't bring down divine retribution like, you know, being gay.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Substitute "l" for the "cr" in crazy and that accounts for some of it. Someone I work with said he didn't have the background to understand in any detail what had gone wrong with Iraq, the legal issues in the torture bill, the deficit issues, and so on. But it was easy to see that letting one of your Congressmen mess around with kids was just plain wrong.
Now, I think if he gave it any thought he could figure out most of the things he claims he can't understand, but he's right that "Letting one of your Congressmen mess around with kids" takes no effort to sort out. The light bulb goes on at once with that one.
I think another angle on the torture thing is that we've taken "Because we don't do these things, we are the Good Guys", and turned it around to "Because we are the Good Guys, we can't really be doing these things."

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

There is starting to be evidence that what Foley did wasn't confined to email; it included physical molestation. I don't consider that "only middling bad." And as far as methods for getting rid of the folks what passed the indefinite-internment bill go, I will take what I can get.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

It's the idea that "sincerity is more important than competence". Foley was caught breaking laws he introduced and was in charge of enforcing. Compare that to the press conference Bush gave to hand-picked journalists, who all came out praising his decisiveness and air of authority.

[esmereldachubb.livejournal.com]

Thank you!!!! I hate the fact that we live in a country where it's seen as politically expedient to vote *for* a bill that legalizes torture and eliminates legal rights for people accused of terrorism.

I wonder if people will start to care when Congress passes a bill that allows the police to hold *anybody* indefinitely without access to lawyers, or a right to a trial, or even to know what the charges against them are? Or when the police are allowed to torture suspects for a confession?

Gah. Don't get me started.

[shagbark.livejournal.com]

I'm not feeling as sure as I used to that torture, in war, is always wrong. If you pre-emptively agree not to torture your enemy's soldiers, while they're still torturing your soldiers, you lose your bargaining position. You lose the chance to convince them to stop torturing your soldiers.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

As I've said before: I now understand how the Right felt about Monica Lewinsky.

It doesn't matter, but it's what we've got to take down the Bad Guys.

They felt Clinton was a Bad Guy, not because he slept around, but because he was doing many policy things (which I like) that were changing America away from what they wanted it to be. So, when he gave them a lever that people could actually UNDERSTAND, they grabbed it.

The Foley scandal, people understand. The fact that one congressman was probably schtupping teenagers is not really THAT serious on the grand scheme of things -- it's bad, but it's bad on a personal, individual, "retail" level.

Torture as a policy, suspension of habeas corpus, and the general expansion of the powers of the executive are wholesale bad. And much, much bigger.

And much harder to understand.

So, damn it, I want the Republicans to lose power for being corrupt, immoral bastards who like torture and abuse of power, but, if they're going to lose it because one of them schtupps teenagers and others of them didn't stop him -- I'll take it. If that's what we've got, fine.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Crazy? No. Ignorant and misguided, yes.

They think torture is bad, but evil people won't co-operate without it, and so people will die.

They don't know what habeas corpus is, nor why it matters.

This power will be used only for good.

So, what's to worry about.

But this Foley thing, it makes the Republicans look bad on a slew of levels (which were apparent to those who saw the reasons for torture as being specious). They are hypocrites (in that anyone who isn't straight on the other side is "evil" and part of a "lifestyle" which promotes evil, but they say Foley is just a single person).

We have been told, for years, in the same way we are being told about terrorists, that "these people" are insisdious, and that whenever they are found, to be rooted out. But they aren't rooting him out.

The cover up looks venal (it is, but that venality was hidden to them, because it was "good" venality, all about God helping the good, and like that).

They have kids. They've been told (and are being told) that all homosexuals are also pederasts. Since they see homosexuals around them, they feel threatened, moreso than with "terrorists" because "good", "Christian" white folks don't do terrorism, but anyone can be a child-molesting homosexual weirdo.

Foley's attempts to make all sorts of things illegal has been mining these waters for years, and now all that paranoia is coming home.

In so many ways this brings all the failings of the Republicans to the fore, in a way that "protecting us from terrorists" by stripping our liberties couldn't.

TK