Given that the dark matter is once again exercising its invisible pull on the national consciousness – come, let me show you something my little darlings, its right here, just around the corner, you’ll like it, a little further now – and attempting to use Osama bin Laden’s long goodbye as renewed justification for torture, […]
Eight Bad Arguments for Torture
I believe in American exceptionalism. There, I said it. Now let me make clear what I mean. I believe the American advent, the American idea, and the American experience are exceptional: a nation of laws, and not of men and women, a constitutional democracy founded in and devoted to the liberty of its people, a […]
PinoCheney
One of the most misused and abused forms of argument is that by analogy. One thing is compared to another, the first intended to be understood in terms of the other as a way of facilitating understanding. The reason for arguing by analogy is that understanding complex subjects and arguments is hard: the analogy, like […]
Tortured Argument
The next several years of the torture debate will be variously instructive, not least in what we already see in the low form and manner of important public political argument among figures who should have been schooled to a higher level. The debate will last at least a few years, and it will distress in […]
The Reckoning Will Come
Others will not let us forget – as they shouldn’t – even if we want to. The Spanish, through Baltasar Garzon, held Pinochet to account decades later. Now they turn the scrutiny of the law on the U.S., which has long and often sought to hold others to account. Who will we be in the […]