Law, Order and Torture: A Messy Trio

Nothing beats sitting down to wipe your mind clean with am anti-bacterial substance only to be blind sighted. A recent episode of Law & Order had me locked and engaged as it took aim at an important issue: torture as a means to an end. It was rather intriguing how it navigated through the murky swamp between justice and use of torture. My date with an idle mind had to wait.

For many, the issue is as deep as it is grey absent of any concrete black or white answers. I fall into this group. But this particular show crystallized some cold, hard realities I have chosen to write about.

The show itself revolved (and I deliberately briefly summarize) around how information was obtained by a police officer to locate a kidnapped girl. Excessive force (a difficult thing to measure to be sure) was used to gain knowledge from a con-man who attempted to use the girl as leverage to rob a bank. The means of coercion used by the Detective Fontana was the art of dunking the suspects head into a toilet bowl. By the third dip (I must confess I enjoyed this scene thoroughly), the information required was given - that'll teach the crook to tell a police officer 'screw you.' The girl was saved and all sorts of personal moral dilemmas versus Western legal traditions ensues.

Whatever intellectual considerations presented, I don't think any parent on earth would have objected to what Fontana did. I know I wouldn't. McCoy was on to something when he said it is time to use the law 'as a sword to protect the victims' for a change.

Far from being a legal expert, it was glaring (even for me) how clear it was that Detective Fontana did the right thing. So the bad guy got roughed up a little. He should have thought of that before going off to grab a six year old from her home. Yes, in this case the ends justifies the means. By extension, yes, terrorists understand the language of force. There is nothing complicated here.

What about suspected terrorists? How many would object to having a known terrorist with information that could save many lives tortured? Desperate times call for desperate measures. Alan Dershowitz most certainly concurs. I don't think the founding Fathers, in all their wisdom and glory, would be morally and intellectually depraved enough to go to extremes in protecting the rights of a person who plans to destroy their own way of life. I fully recognize what I am advocating here. Who said balancing security and liberty is easy?

Stable, strong, liberal democracies will always be faced with such issues. We will inevitably use measures that are not part of our collective belief systems, but given the inherent advanced and flexible nature of our society, these (in this case torture) are usually temporary and not likely to become part of the social norm. Democracies battling terrorism fight with two strikes against them. They need to gain a ball somewhere.

This is not to say we should flagrantly resort to torture. The point is that sometimes we just have to take a deep breath and accept the fact that in some cases it is appropriate. Torture truly is a barbaric act. It really takes a special type of character to do it. Nor am I completely convinced that the people in power possess the moral authority to conduct it. This, I'm afraid, is for another debate.

For our purposes here, never give the criminal the upper hand. At this moment, whether we choose to accept this or not, men with less than stellar ideals seek to take advantage of our obsession with providing good governance to all. Time to shift this advantage slightly back into the hands of civil citizens.

Every single person - most people anyway - understand that sometimes a sound kick in the butt works to protect something we cherish or love. Are we prepared to accept this in a time where the nature of war (in terms of how an enemy operates) is changing before us? Not that terrorist techniques are anything new in world history but in the context of Western culture since 1648 it is indeed new - and uncomfortable.

Fontana and McCoy were right. Borgia, for her part, also had a valid point. Our moral conscience should always be consulted in order to ensure our justice and the legal system protects our civil liberties. A little, calculated suspicion of people with power can be healthy. However, (in this case anyway) Fontana and McCoy were closer in line with what most of us think. It's hard to admit in public - or words- that you agree with excessive means.

That was some exercise. An idle mind - or hands - is the devil's workshop anyways.