On that whole, "looking forward" thing
May. 14th, 2009 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI see a lot of apologists (mostly for torture, but some for things like wiretapping), saying we need to look foreward, not backwards.
One.. huh? Prosecutions have to look bacwards. A crime has to happen before it can be prosecuted.
That's the first oddity. The other one is that I saw, in the dim and distant past of 2008, a lot of people saying, "Well sometimes the law has to be broken. If a cop knows someone has info, and the only way to get it is to torture the guy, then he needs to do it. No jury will convict someone who saves a kid's life by beating up a perp."
This is often followed by a bravura follow-on: "I'd do it if I had to, and I'd turn myself in and face the music."
Ok, lets assume that's true.
Why aren't the people who authorised the tortures saying, "Yeah, I ordred peopel to do it. I had to, it was to save lives. So go ahead, charge me. I'll prove it was needed, and no jury will convict me?"
One.. huh? Prosecutions have to look bacwards. A crime has to happen before it can be prosecuted.
That's the first oddity. The other one is that I saw, in the dim and distant past of 2008, a lot of people saying, "Well sometimes the law has to be broken. If a cop knows someone has info, and the only way to get it is to torture the guy, then he needs to do it. No jury will convict someone who saves a kid's life by beating up a perp."
This is often followed by a bravura follow-on: "I'd do it if I had to, and I'd turn myself in and face the music."
Ok, lets assume that's true.
Why aren't the people who authorised the tortures saying, "Yeah, I ordred peopel to do it. I had to, it was to save lives. So go ahead, charge me. I'll prove it was needed, and no jury will convict me?"
