In a BBC interview where he insulted Europeans and all of humanity, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia justified the use of torture. He says that smacking someone in the face to avoid a bomb being set off in Los Angeles is OK with him. He ignores the fact that torture is ineffective and usually provides misinformation instead of actionable intelligence. He also completely rules out the issue of human rights.
"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?"
So much of Scalia's interview if offensive it's difficult to know where to begin. He cites the US constitution as the only basis for his beliefs, ignoring the fact that our international treaties also are part and parcel of our body of laws. His logic is that since prisoners at Gitmo, for example, are not American citizens or on U.S. soil, they aren't entitled to constitutional protections. Last I heard Guantanamo was U.S. soil just as any military base or embassy compound is. The U.S. flag flies over Guantanamo. If someone at Gitmo kills or rapes someone Scalia is saying they are completely outside the scope of American jurisprudence insofar as constitutional protections.
Unfortunately our international treaty obligations, specifically the Geneva Conventions, binds us to complying with those laws we have adopted. These accord every human basic rights. Oops, Scalia disagrees.
John McCain and Mike Huckabee have both siad they would appoint Scalia-type judges to the Supreme Court. Remember this as you contemplate for whom to vote this year.
The failure of this torture argument is that the FBI has very skilled agents trained in the techniques of interrogation. When I think how good and effective they are I am reminded of the old TV show "Homicide." Andre Braugher's character could elicit information and confessions with his knowledge, training and wit. There is no need to torture, abuse or inhumanely treat prisoners to gain reliable information. This is the fundamental failure of Scalia's justification.
He also insulted those of us who disagree with his opinion: "You can't come in smugly and with great self satisfaction and say 'Oh it's torture, and therefore it's no good'." He called Europeans self righteous for opposing the death penalty:
If you took a public opinion poll, if all of Europe had representative democracies that really worked, most of Europe would probably have the death penalty today.
"There are arguments for it and against it. But to get self-righteous about the thing as Europeans tend to do about the American death penalty is really quite ridiculous."
That sanctimonious, bellicose, brazen, foul-smelling, heap of a person who gives good jurists ugly names!
I am incensed, I am livid, I am ribald, and I am sadly all too not even shocked at his level of vitriol and by some accounts of commenters around here, I am well acquainted with vitriol on some topics.
No justice of any supreme court of these United States of America has any damn ounce of business giving such an address or expressing such views and still have the nuts to sit in any type of allegedly objective judgment involving such landmark and finitie opinions that the USSC renders, each and every year. I'd expect Roberts to admonish his colleague, but I ain't holding my damn breath.
It is the presence of justices like Scalia that makes me think that we should NOT have supreme court justices who have unlimited terms of service. Talk about "activist" judges, this asshat of a pompous muhl and his bile can go pound sand for all I care. He invites contempt for his profession and leaves an ugly mark on the face of what is supposed to be "justice for all", according to our pledge. We seem to get so lost in the "under God" part of that pledge that the other parts have lost their meaning to some.
I somehow imagine that during the rise of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia and perhaps even other similar cases of rises to power and the burgeoning of fascist or despotic rulers, that such speeches by their minions, lieutenants, and apologetics have been common, but I was always of thought, until recently, that our country fought against such brazen usurpations of power and kept utmost respect for democratic principles, liberty, and justice for all. Even our languistically challenged Commander-in-Chief has been hot on "exporting democracy" to others, but alas Scalia didn't get the damn memo.
Granted, I love that he's basically shoved his shoes into his mouth and the mouthes of both McCain and Huckabee for their campaign efforts and electability, but it makes that much stronger my feels that the power of the states and the people and NOT the power of the federal government should be paramount. We cannot trust them and it is too easy for someone else of a Scalia mindset to rise to some level of power where we are all at their mercy, in a way.
It also refreshes the notions that allegedly highly educated and intellectual people are often no better, and sometimes quite a bit worse than the most common, simply educated and unintellectual among us all. I thought Clarence Thomas' appearances on Eternal World Television Network aka the Catholic Channel were somewhat questionable and improper, but Scalia is completely out of line on this one.
-Signed,
One of your citizen employers
Posted by: DC 93 | February 12, 2008 at 07:10 PM