Chris Wallace Shows Us All that Slippery Slope

[paft.livejournal.com]

Chris Wallace on Fox News:

I’m not asking why it was okay to shoot Osama bin Laden…What I am second-guess is, if that’s okay, why can’t you do waterboarding, why can’t you do enhanced interrogation…

So now the argument is that if we’re going to shoot people, we might as well torture them. Apparently Wallace can’t see the difference between shooting someone in a firefight and systematically torturing a naked, bound prisoner. This moral difference is one that has been recognized for decades in the civilized world – people who waterboarded captured combatants in the past have been tried and convicted for it -- but apparently it’s lost on him.

This is why some of us have reservations about targeted assassinations without trials, even targeted assassinations against someone like bin Laden. It’s not because we feel sorry for bin Laden. It’s because of people like Wallace. Give them in inch in that direction, and they'll clamor for a mile the next day. Remove one human rights barrier, and it doesn’t matter how many assurances you get about it only being this once, about it only being done in very specific circumstances, about it never, EVER being abused… A day later the Chris Wallaces of the world will point to where the barrier once stood, assert out there's no barrier anymore, and ask why we all don't go just a little further.

Honest. Just this once! Just a few inches! Cross their hearts and hope to die...

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You're right as far as successive undeclared wars were concerned. Unfortunately they're a bipartisan practice and can't be blamed on one specific party.