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Comparing 24 to Life

By W. James Antle, III on 8.25.09 @ 1:23PM

I understand what Jonah Goldberg is getting at here -- that despite the controversies about torture allegations, popular culture suggests that most Americans don't instinctively mind rough stuff being done to bad guys. But there are some important qualifications here. In a TV show or movie, the audience "knows" to a moral certainty that the person being dealt with harshly is guilty. And the audience usually "knows" that the torture is preventing some forseeable evil. Neither of those things are always known in the real world.

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Tim| 8.25.09 @ 4:10PM

"Neither of those things are always known in the real world. "

But sometimes they are known.

Fred| 8.25.09 @ 4:56PM

As they were known in the actual cases being talked about. Antle III's qualifications are about as useful as his statements usually are.

MattSwartz| 8.25.09 @ 11:59PM

As they were known in the actual cases being talked about. Antle III's qualifications are about as useful as his statements usually are.

That is inaccurate.

It is positively certain that not every person tortured by the US and their surrogates was engaged in terrorism.

It is unlikely that a majority were so engaged, either. What that means is that America, the birthplace of the world's greatest Constitution, ignored all of it's best principles to torture innocent people because some of it's employees were scared.