How Stupid Do They Think We Are?
Posted on June 2nd, 2009 by John Schwenkler
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Pretty stupid, apparently. I’m sure that this line of “thought” has been picked apart plenty of times in the anti-torture blogosphere, but Newt deserves a fisking of his own:
… waterboarding is not torture. Waterboarding has been routinely used to train American pilots in the military to understand what interrogation techniques they might encounter.
By extension:
- Having sex with a woman is not raping her. Sex is routinely had between men and women as an expression of love and a means to pleasure and procreation.
- Punching a man in the face is not assaulting him. Men routinely punch one another in the face in the boxing ring as a test of athletic prowess.
- Driving 75 miles an hour on a residential street is not speeding. Cars routinely drive 75 miles an hour or more on the highway.
Further suggestions from the peanut gallery are welcome as always.
Filed under: torture
Theft is not stealing, people borrow from one another all the time.
Haven’t we already covered this ground with the “Abu Ghraib as fraternity hazing” analogy? (trademark, Rush Limbaugh, I believe)
Also: when did Newt! get elevated to wise elder statesman status? He’s been all over the place recently.
[...] “How Stupid Do They Think We Are?” By John Schwenkler: Pretty stupid, apparently. I’m sure that this line of “thought” has been picked apart plenty [...]
Perfect. Note perfect.
I had a couple additional lines, but yours are pitch-perfect.
But something else interesting about Newt’s statement – notice how he says “understand what interrogation techniques they might encounter,” rather than “understand how to withstand torture.”
Nice, Mark – I’d noticed the very same thing.
True conservatives must stand there ground and call out these ass clowns whenever they rear there heads. Cheney, Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly, Palin, Joe the Plumber,etc. I dislike Harry Reid and Pelosi immensely but given the choice between them and the know nothing party I hold my nose and support the DEMS.
I would like to see a party which included the likes of Chuck Hagel, Ron Paul, Colin Powell, the NE Republicans, etc… The Republican party is for evangelicals and the ignorant right now. They are social conservatives but when it comes to fiscal matters not so much. They want govt. out of business but what govt. blended with religion than rammed down our throats. It is telling that Barry Goldwater wouldn’t fit into this party anymore.
A more accurate analogy, since SERE is designed to help servicemen resist torture, might be: smallpox is good for you, because we use strains of the disease to inoculate potential victims.
The sad thing is I don’t think Newt thinks “we” are that stupid. I think Newt knows that the Republican base is that stupid and, given sufficient anxiety, enough swing voters are too.
[...] not torture” because the U.S. military trains using it on its soldiers too. John Schwenkler takes that logic further: “Having sex with a woman is not raping her. Sex is routinely had between men and women as an [...]
What I say is not a lie. Words are used often in everyday conversation in specific sentences to convey accurate information.
Having sex with another man is not gay, males bond all the time.
12 year old girls should be allowed to vote for the American President. They vote for the American Idol.
Divorcing your cancer-ridden wife as she lays in a hospital bed so you can marry your mistress is not cruel and immoral. People routinely say painful goodbyes at the hospital.
Apparently also claiming that the techniques that were used were “specific” also makes them AOK.
“The United States has used specific enhanced interrogation techniques in specific circumstances against very high-level terrorists for the purpose of saving innocent civilian lives, not for taking them
Shooting heroine is not using drugs. Doctors routinely prescribe IV opiate injections.
Giving people atomic wedgies is not bullying. Underwear rides up peoples’ asses all the time on its own.
I agree with your assertion and with two of your comparative arguments. However, your first, involving sex, is not a valid argument, unless you posit that all sex is rape. A better one would be, Violent sex is not rape. Sex is routinely… It may sound more awkward, and perhaps isn’t the best analogy to make. I like Karin’s about stabbing better.
Stabbing someone is not violence – doctors are paid to cut into people’s bodies all the time for their own health.
My first thought was, doesn’t that mean that every BDSM technique ever used isn’t torture? I don’t think I need to even trot out the list of what activities *that* encompasses…
Well, I don’t know how stupid Newt Gingrinch thinks you are, but judging from these responses, you’re pretty stupid.
To put his argument into a syllogism:
1. The US military would not /does not routinely subject its own personnel to torture. (Not explicitly stated, but clearly implied)
2. The US military routinely waterboards (some of) its personnel. (It also routinely deprives them of sleep, yells at them, insults them, gives them unattractive haircuts,deprives them of food, etc.)
3. Therefore, waterboarding (and these other activities) is not torture.
I’m sure you all disagree with the premises involved, but the argument itself is perfectly logical, unlike the ridiculous strawmen you all threw up.
Of course, I’m not “smart” like all of you are.
No, apparently you’re not. By your own, er, logic, Sam:
1. American drivers would not /do not routinely violate speed limits.
2. American drivers routinely drive over 75 mph.
3. Therefore, driving over 75 mph does not violate speed limits.
Obviously the key point, which shouldn’t need to be spelled out, is that the context in which something is done (e.g. whether it’s done as part of a training exercise or as a means to terrify a prisoner and thus extract information), the position of the person it is done to (e.g. whether he’s willingly subjected himself to it, etc.), and so on, all affect the moral status of the act in question.
Stupid, indeed.
Sam, Newt isn’t providing a logical argument at all. We do torture SERE participants, which is the whole point. It wouldn’t be torture practice without, well, torture.
[...] John Schwenkler at American Conservative, in a post reminiscent of a previous Deep Stupid, dismantles most conservatives’ favorite argument — most recently voiced by Newt Gingrich — that waterboarding cannot be torture because military trainers do it to our own soldiers. [...]
I routinely pull out my child’s fingernails to toughen him up for when he goes to school. He is my child and these acts are not torture because I, as an authority figure, said it so.
While living in the Atlanta area, I was represented in Congress by Mr. Gingrich, at least to the extent that Mr. Gingrich has ever represented anything other than his own gigantic ego and his bloated sense of self-importance. It is useless to attempt to parse anything the man says. Every idea that pops into his head, at the rate of approximately one million notions per minute, he perceives as a heaven-sent truth which he is duty bound to reveal to the ignorant masses.
When these revelations are directly contradicted a minute later it’s merely evidence of his originality and intellectual versatility, if he even remembers what those old ideas were.
There’s a reason why Mr. Gingrich and his supporters were known locally as “Newtie and the Blowhards.”
As a leftie, tree-hugging, democratic socialist, it’s ever so nice to see that not all of my ideological opponents are knuckle-dragging thugs like Gingrich, etc. I’m very glad that no matter what other things we may disagree on, there are some conservatives out there who understand that torture is torture.
Thank you, Mr. Schwenkler. You’ve restored some of my faith in humanity today.
Oh, and also thank you to the many commenters who are in agreement with Mr. Schwenkler’s statements.
Slitting someone’s throat with a knife is not assault. Doctors routinely slit open patients’ throats with knives during tracheotomies to save their lives.
Sam: let me put this into a syllogism for you.
1. Doctors do not routinely assault people.
2. Doctors routinely slit open people’s throats with knives.
3. Therefore, slitting open people’s throats with knives is not assault.
Why is this syllogism absurd?
The key issues here would be the intent of the throat-slitter, and the consent of the throat-slittee. Is that clear?
Business partners routinely open up joint financial accounts all the time, therefore I shouldn’t have sued my old friend (now ex) and business partner for identity theft when he ran up charges on my personal credit cards,