As I’ve watched the debates about various aspects of our behavior as a nation (the United States), I am very concerned with the way we seem to be able to rationalize things that normally would be totally unacceptable. The same action can be acceptable when we do it and a gross violation of justice when done by someone else. Something that is acceptable done to another person is a horrible violation of our rights if it is done to us.
Here are just a few stray thoughts . . .
When we grab terrorists and torture them, we are just protecting ourselves. When Russia does it in Chechnya, it’s a human rights violation.
When we arrest someone without a warrant it’s a necessary part of defending ourselves against terrorism. When someone else does it, it’s an abuse of power.
When we invade a country it’s preemptive defense; when someone else does it it’s naked aggression.
This extends to our personal lives. As a nation we have a low view of congress, but we generally have a favorable view of our own congressman. We like it when our congressman brings home the pork; all those other congressmen ought to stop! We dislike attorneys as a profession, but we generally like our own attorney–at least as long as he wins.
The other guy’s defense attorney is a sleaze who is prostituting himself to get a criminal off; our attorney is just using the best possible strategy to see to it that we get a just result.
When we consider the justification–or more likely rationalization–for some of the things we are doing in the war on terror, we need to ask ourselves how we would react if some other country, or some other person, did the same things. I think we would find it much harder to justify these actions when done by others than when we do them.
There is, of course, the argument that we must do these things in order to survive. But let me ask this: If I survive by lowering myself to the point of torturing someone else, just who is it that survived? Do I want to be that person?
Who would Jesus torture?
