Keeping up with the Joneses

[pecunium]

A bunch of the Glenn Reynolds types are all up in arms, because people who oppose the U.S. using torture aren't all up in arms that Al Qaeda in Iraq endorses it.

Well, that's not news. Al Qaeda (in Iraq, and everywhere else) is a bunch of terrorists.

I don't think we should be measuring ourselves against them; as if they were the benchmark of civilisation.

Then again, maybe the pearl clutchers of the world did learn everything they needed to know in kindergarten, "but Jimmy hit me too," can be be heard in defense on any playground, anywhere.

The grown-ups, however, tend to dismiss it.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Has it occurred to any of them that it isn't news that terrorists favor, and use, torture? And that getting "up in arms" about it would be a waste of time and energy because, well, Al Qaeda doesn't exactly care what we think of their methods?

But some of us in the U.S. hoped that we were better than a terrorist group. I am less optimistic each day.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

John Cole (Balloon Juice) did.

His post, to which the comments I posted above were appended was short, pithy, and dead on point.

It isn’t news because they are terrorists, you fucking simpletons. Yesterday, my cat scratched himself then shit in a box. The media didn’t report that, either.

TK

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that.