So says Caleb Stegall, who is no fan of Cheney, but who points out that Eric Voegelin told an uncomfortable truth about statesmanship . You should read the entire Voegelin passage in Caleb's post, but basically, the great political theorist taught that even the most beneficent political order exists on the basis of cruelty; the trick is to keep people from recognizing it. If you force them to confront their own guilt, you will suffer. Notes Caleb:
Cheney's chief sin is admitting these hard truths to public consciousness. If he had read his Voegelin, he would have known the fate awaiting him.
This is an extremely difficult position to be in, don't you think? I've always felt that Jack Nicholson's character in "A Few Good Men" had far more ugly truth on his side than I was comfortable admitting:
Do we all need Dick Cheney on that wall, like Col. Jessep? Though we can't stand to admit it, are we secretly happy that there was for a while men at the pinnacle of power who would stop at nothing -- and who felt unbound by any law -- to protect this country? Voegelin would say that it's not Dick Cheney's existence that really bothers us, but the fact that he (Cheney) forces us to acknowledge it. Because if we stare clearly at the principle Cheney stood for -- that is, the idea that no law, either statutory or moral, is higher than protecting the United States from attack -- then, if we are honest with ourselves, we are forced to reflect on how so much of what is good and honorable about our daily lives depends on the willingness to accept, however implicitly, injustice and immorality.
I think what Voegelin is saying is not that the ends justify the means as a principle of morality, but as a description of the way men and societies actually behave. To stand behind Cheney is to sanction the view that power elites have the right to break the law for the sake of defending the political and social order. Do we really want to admit to that? Most of us do not -- and if we do, imagine then your political opponents in charge of the government, and making the decisions about which laws need ("need") to be broken to protect our civilization. So of course we don't want to admit it. But if we don't believe that Cheney and Jessep need to be on that wall (so to speak), why aren't we moving forward to prosecute him and people like him?
Frankly, I would like to see some kind of prosecutions, because I don't want to live in the kind of country in which the leadership arrogates to itself the power to violate all laws in service of some higher ideal, chosen by itself. You let Cheney et alia get away with this, what kind of precedent have you set for future administrations? At what point does defending the order justify rounding up domestic political opponents, and invalidating the constitution? You know? We can't go down this road, or at least if we're going to be dragged down it, we have to fight every inch of the way.
Yet it must be admitted that many of us have a profound ambivalence about all this -- an ambivalence identified by Voegelin. My sense is -- and I accuse myself here too -- that for most of us, we really do want our leaders to protect us by any means necessary, but we simply don't want to have to know about what was done. I don't think this is anything unique to Americans. I think it's merely human.
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"Since I never said that, your are simply wrong. Nice try though."
Ok, Bob.
So under you're moral code what is the moral culpability of someone who executes a person they thought was guilty but who turned out to be innocent? Under your moral code what is the moral culpability of someone who waterboards a person they thought was a terrorist who turns out to be innocent?
uh, pssst RSG, the term is meaningless in your example because then you have to define "torture" legally. the examples you cite to illustrate the theory, are (let's find a nice word...) atypical. in addition to being meaningless. oh noes.
In any case it is not a legal theory that enjoys a lot of discussion outside of academic circles, and even then it would never be used by serious legal scholars to classify Cheney as an "outlaw". now you get a fail as well. doh!
Aha, I’ve just figured out what kt was talking about. I had written that “People can act illegally under color of law, i.e. they can abuse the law, the legal system or their official position to commit outrages against the political and social order.” kt’s answer to this appeared to make no sense: “Your proposed definition is not what ‘under color of law’ means. If it did, everyone on the losing end of a legal battle could be called an ‘outlaw’.” I see now that what s/he was doing was misconstruing the word “can.” To clarify, “can” – as native speakers of English usually learn by the time they’re, like, two – means that something is possible, not that it happens in every case. A prosecutor or judge who uses the mechanisms at his disposal to pursue a personal vendetta or target a political opponent is certainly abusing the law and the legal system “under color of law.” To jump from that to “everyone on the losing end of a legal battle could be called an ‘outlaw’” is like saying that because my car can do 100 mph, then every time I drive it I’m speeding, plus I must also be doing 100 every time I ride a bicycle.
OK, I know, the typical language-torturing of wingnuttery. But kt’s original point, which kind of got lost in that tangent, may actually be central to the whole torture debate. Rod Dreher had called Dick Cheney an “outlaw” (in the title of another post) and said, in the OP above, “To stand behind Cheney is to sanction the view that power elites have the right to break the law for the sake of defending the political and social order.” To that, kt replied: "‘The law’ *exists* to defend the political and social order. It is, by definition, not in opposition to the political and social order” (my emphasis). I noted the “color of law” exception, but the more fundamental question is whether it’s somehow impossible, BY DEFINITION, for Dick Cheney and others to have acted outside the law IF they were “defending the political and social order.” (Rod perhaps should have said “for the sake of defending the country,” but, to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, we go to rhetorical war with the posts we have, not the posts we wish he had.)
Cheney and his legal minions themselves relied on a theory that the Executive Branch has “inherent authority” under Article II of the Constitution to do basically whatever it imagines might be good for the country’s security. That’s a fancier way of saying what kt is apparently saying – while also, of course, explaining away the shredding of the Fourth and Eighth Amendments as somehow “constitutional.” If something promotes the country’s security, as they claim that torture does, then by definition it also promotes the Constitution, American values, “the political and social order” and all things good.
There are plenty of good answers to this. They’ll have to wait for future threads, and I expect they’ll sail right over the heads of our righty friends regardless, but I’m noting the issue here for future reference. We’re dealing with people who don’t understand why or how following the law is essential to political and social order. It’s not just that they like Dick Cheney or that they think torturing A-rabs is cool, disturbing as those attitudes are. It’s that they have a whole different theory of what “law” is, a theory that turns the classical understanding of law on its head. What’s at stake in the torture debate is, ultimately, which theory of law will prevail in America, that one or the Founders’.
CFK, My theory of laws is not in opposition to the Founders. You would have the burden of proof in that argument.
Nevertheless, I sincerely appreciate your relatively thoughtful consideration.
All right, kt, I'm up for that -- we'll have a look at the some of the evidence when this topic next comes up, as I'm certain it will. See you then.
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