It’s time for all you whiny human rights bitches out there to shut your rosy little yapholes and act like men for a change. If some pudgy, soft turd hiding behind a black robe can do it, so can you:
“You can’t come in smugly and with great self satisfaction and say ‘Oh it’s torture, and therefore it’s no good’,” [Scalia] said in a rare interview…
In the interview with the Law in Action programme on BBC Radio 4, he said it was “extraordinary” to assume that the ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” — the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment — also applied to “so-called” torture.
“To begin with the constitution... is referring to punishment for crime. And, for example, incarcerating someone indefinitely would certainly be cruel and unusual punishment for a crime…”
“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?” he asked.
“It would be absurd to say you couldn’t do that. And once you acknowledge that, we’re into a different game. How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?”
My word! And we've never ever tortured an innocent man. They all confessed in the end and named their accomplices.
After trial and conviction, of course, the Eight Amendment takes effect and we should rather kill them than to submit them to a cruel and unusual punishment by letting them rot away in jail.
Torture is not punishment, it's just an interrogation technique, for heavens sake!
Chapeau to a courageaus lawman!
Posted by: Peter on February 12, 2008 1:44 PMI take it logic wasn't his strong suit in law school.
Posted by: Buck on February 12, 2008 3:15 PMFreakin' scum. Judges commit war crimes, too. And are more responsible than anyone else in the society, because they represent law . . . supposedly.
Posted by: NMRon on February 12, 2008 7:41 PMIt's the famous Scalia topsy-turvy logic, which he has applied with equal zaniness to the Fourth Amendment in past decisions, e.g. Wyoming v. Houghton, q.v. at http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/98-184.html except given more time I'd dig up a better example.
Per his reasoning, if an atrocity isn't a punishment for crime it's not barred by the Eighth Amendment, so obviously the Founding Fathers meant their successors to torture only persons detained indefinitely without trial, not persons convicted by due process of law. By the same reasoning, if a particular carceral cruelty isn't unusual, then it can't be "cruel and unusual," now, can it. And you may think I'm slumping into a bitterly satiric reductio here but it's a real 1991 case called Harmelin v. Michigan, http://laws.findlaw.com/us/501/957.html .
Black is white, up is down, freedom is slavery. An officer of the court has to swallow umpty-six impossible things before breakfast just reading the case summaries in the goddamned email.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam on February 13, 2008 12:32 AMIt's the logic of an accomplished sociopath. Stalin would be proud of his reasoning.
Posted by: Peter on February 13, 2008 4:41 AMFat Tony needs to dis the fifth amendment too, specially da part that keeps da fuzz from beating da shit out of ya to make ya squeal.
Posted by: on February 13, 2008 11:43 AMThe full text is worth reading. Here's a link:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/76786/
It's even a little more disgusting, if that's possible, than what Jerome put up. Scalia shames the court, and that we let him be on it shames America. It ought to be possible to impeach judges. Anybody know if it is?
Posted by: CCRyder on February 13, 2008 5:50 PMIn case anybody didn't grow up in an Italian neighborhood, Scalia's gesture in the picture means Go F--- yourself. In Italian it's something like "Vafunnucolo." Spelling's probably wrong but it sounds like that anyway.
Posted by: Phillyboy on February 13, 2008 6:25 PMJust saw Errol Morris' documentary "Standard Operating Procedure" about Abu Ghraib at the Berlinale. And what do you think the torturers had to say about their deeds? Surprise, surprise! They were just following orders. The old excuse of any Nazi war criminal.
Did they have any regrets? Yes! Having let themselves be caught. Their mistake was not torturing the prisoners, their mistake was taking photgraphs in the process.
Common criminals, going free because their judges are of the same ilk.
Posted by: Peter on February 14, 2008 4:35 AM