Responding to some rather silly comments on an Orin Kerr post about the CIA’s admittedly harsh interrogation techniques, Ogged observes,
The comments are an almost unbroken string of “that don’t seem so bad to me,” even including the old, “my frat did worse than that.” First, the stuff even idiots should understand: the difference between what a frat does (or what the military does to you in training) is that in the frat and military a) you consent b) you have an expectation that you won’t, in fact, be grievously harmed or permanently injured c) you know that it won’t go on for what could be the rest of your life. So, if we’re going to make headway on the torture debate, we have to make people understand that “torture” is a situation, not necessarily a specific act or technique.
Yep.
And, as always when this topic comes up, Jim Henley‘s reply to Alan Derschowitz is worth revisiting.
