I don't actually care about it. I know all I need to know. I know full well what has occurred in those torture chambers. I know that children have been raped by interrogators. I know that subjects have been sodomized with acid-soaked rods. Under Mister Yoo's crack counsel, these things are considered legal because they do not cause organ failure or death. I consider these things illegal because they are disgusting. They are moral outrages. And what has become lost on so many people is that the sole function of law is to codify moral imperatives. You don't steal. You don't murder. And you don't videotape children being raped. That is why I completely ignore all other jurisdictions: Their laws really have very little to do with promoting moral imperatives and everything to do with securing the material concerns of special interests.
I've grown so weary of arguing against torture. It is amazing to me that it's even open to discussion. Torture has one function only, and that is to bring pain to another. Torture is sadism. Sociopaths like to torture people. The thing, the rationale, the true reason. Torture is sold for the purpose of making it possible for sociopaths to express their sickness unfettered by the constraints of law. Sociopaths always gravitate to positions of power. They delight in exercising power over others. And they always overrun government. Tyranny --which has come to this land, and which promises only eternal, soul-crushing misery for your children-- may be defined as the rule of the sociopath. The United States government is firmly in the control of sociopaths. This is not hyperbole. This is a dispassionate assessment based on a study of history. Your society has collapsed because no one will stand against tyrannical sociopathy.
I am a man out of time. I exist in some other age. I exist in some idealized world where torture is simply not okay. I exist in an age where decent men hunt down criminals, try them, and put them to death.
Heinous crimes have taken place in your midst, right in front of you. You are morally obligated to attend to them. You have moral responsibilities that must be discharged. It is not optional. The decent man is morally compelled to resist sociopaths. The entire history of mankind is nothing but a struggle of the properly functioning human against the predations of the sociopath. It's always something. It is an eternal struggle. It will never end. Every generation finds itself with its test, its opportunity to square its shoulder against the spread of lawlessness and savagery. Future generations expect the discharge of your duty and they will curse your cowardice if you neglect it.
The real value of this Truth Commission is not necessarily that we will uncover things that we don't already know. It is that we demonstrate to all that we do not tolerate sociopathic, sadistic behavior. It indicates to all who may examine this society the nature of our moral code. What is moral? Moral is that which promotes a felicitous behavior among men. It is that which promotes a properly functioning human society. Permitting sadistic sociopaths to walk free is immoral; it is a normalizing of degeneracy.
When a moral imperative presents itself, no other considerations apply. All else just gets shunted off the books. Your re-election is not relevant. How you will appear in the news media is not relevant. When a moral imperative presents itself, you take off your politician hat and you put on your statesman hat.
Why do you think there are so many uniquely unqualified people running around these days playing statesman? It's because it's an open field. There's no competition. How do you lose?
I have removed myself from your political union and your society. I am not of you. If no action is taken to bring these criminals to justice, do not ever claim an association with me. I will not be seen in public with the town rapist.
And I know that my political choices have placed me in some great legal jeopardy of other jurisdictions. I don't care. I could die tommorrow and I would do so with a smile on my face, content in the knowledge that I stood for something.
I would rather be destroyed by your degenerate society than to be judged complicit with it.
However you slice it, I win.
