Eugene Volokh created quite a dustup when he
endorsed the notion that torturing people before killing them can sometimes be a good thing:
I like civilization, but some forms of savagery deserve to be met not just with cold, bloodless justice but with the deliberate infliction of pain, with cruel vengeance rather than with supposed humaneness or squeamishness. I think it slights the burning injustice of the murders, and the pain of the families, to react in any other way.
And, yes, I know this aligns me in this instance with the Iranian government -- but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and in this instance the Iranians are quite correct.
Hey, it's not just the Iranian government. Radical religious conservatives throughout the world agree: torturing people Can Be Fun. (Plus, it's a great outing for the family!)
Matthew Yglesias, Digby, and Majikthise all had excellent responses, all worth reading. As Digby puts it:
This is awfully interesting, don't you think? How long has it been since we were talking about torture for the alleged higher purpose of obtaining information a suspect may or may not have? A couple of months? Yesterday? And now the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment has entered the dialog as well.
So anyway, Volokh says in an update that he thinks torturing criminals before executing them would "probably" violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. His solution? Why, we need to amend the Bill of Rights to allow it:
I think the Bill of Rights is generally a great idea, but I don't think it's holy writ handed down from on high. Certain amendments to it may well be proper, though again I freely acknowledge that they'd be highly unlikely.
In any event, there's nothing unconstitutional about letting victims' relatives participate in the execution; it's only the use of cruel means that would require an amendment.
... which is followed with a peppering of other updates which, because you and I are both busy people, I will summarize thusly:
(Paraphrased) Hey, who's to say what's right and wrong in this crazy, mixed up world? When it comes to tying a guy up in the town square -- a coldblooded, vile criminal of the worst sort, mind you -- and having members of the family and community take their turns torturing him, stabbing him, flaying him alive while he screams before finally hanging him from a crane, you know, whatever -- maybe you're right that such practices somehow degrade us, or somehow endorse violence (through, you know, telling a town full of people to come on out and be as violent and bloodthirsty as they'd like, but only on special occasions), or represent a form of mob rule that is antithetical to modern societies, or maybe I'm right that an amendment to the Bill of Rights might be a good thing because hey, it sure feels like torturing criminals might be a good idea for victim's families. You say tah-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe.
Normally I don't pay much attention to casual asides by conservative posters that they'd like to do away with this section or that section of the Bill of Rights because, you know, maybe the Bill of Rights no longer represents the kind of society we want to build here in America. But Volokh is not simply some right-wing nutcase writing about the Illuminati and gold fringes on flags and how they don't have to pay sales tax because anything within 500 feet of that California Live Oak over there is technically a municipality of the Kingdom of Alf, Destroyer of Worlds.
No, Volokh is a professor of constitutional law.
And in this case, it's worth paying attention, because this is the argument we all should be having as a nation. It's clear the United States has been torturing people, through the process of "extraordinary rendition". It's also clear that many of those people, judging from the number who have been released afterwards, are turning out to be innocent.
So fine, let's have this argument. To hell with beating around the bush, to hell with pretending it's not happening. I'd like to hear more conservatives just come right out and say it -- we endorse torturing people, not because of some absurdly constructed "ticking clock" scenario, but simply because it feels good.