Morality play

Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?

That's the question the Pew Research Center asked 742 Americans recently. They found that group almost evenly split -- 49 percent saying often or sometimes, and 47 percent saying rarely or never.

Actually, let me change that. They found that group overwhelmingly endorsed torturing suspected terrorists. Only 25 percent said torture could never be justified.

Most media outlets who reported this survey did so to point out that people who attend religious services on at least a weekly basis were more likely to endorse torture than those who rarely or never went to services. My colleagues pointed out that of the very religious, 54 percent said that torture was often or sometimes justified, while among the miscreants who don't attend services, only 42 percent said torture was often or sometimes justified.

But what I find much more interesting is that the 25 percent number holds almost across the board -- 25 percent of those who attend services at least weekly, 23 percent of those who attend services monthly or several days a year and 26 percent of those who rarely or never attend services think that torture is unjustifiable.

Which means that roughly three-quarters, across the board, can find a justification for waterboarding, or forcing someone to stand for hours with their hand held above their head, or sticking someone's head in a box with insects and telling him or her they're poisonous, or a whole list of really atrocious actions.

75 percent.

So, while it is interesting to note that the religious amongst us, who generally love telling the world how caring they are, are generally more bloodthirsty than their non-religious counterparts. But when it comes down to it, we're a nasty, cruel lot, we Americans.

Of course, nearly 65 percent of us back the death penalty too, another barbaric custom that would seem to sit so well with the religious. And, once again, 27 percent -- according to a 2008 Gallup poll -- see the death penalty as morally wrong.

Interestingly, another Gallup poll, this one taken in 2007, showed that more than 80 percent of Americans think that morality in America is getting worse, with 44 percent describing the moral state of the country as already poor. Care to guess what they think is the cause of all this lack of morality?

Me, I'm thinking that our priorities are a tad screwed, that we're missing the mark on what's moral and what's not, that we've abdicated our, if you'll excuse my use of the term, god-given ability to think for ourselves and handed it over to men and women who are more interested in their own elevation than in our salvation.

We've fallen prey to our baser "instincts," if you can call it that. I think it's just the easiest thing to do. If you don't like it, if you fear it, if you don't understand it, make it "other." Make it so different that you no longer need to see it as anything worthy of your compassion.

Then kill it. That way it won't bother you anymore and you can go right on with your narrow-minded self. And we have plenty of political and religious leaders more than ready to encourage us down that dark and risky pathway.

So, when you see this new administration gauging the political winds on things like investigating the torture regime, let alone prosecuting it, here's why.

When only 25 percent of us think that torture is morally wrong, there's just not much there to counter the rest of the Romans with their thumbs down before they even know the story on the guy to be tortured.

Bloodthirst. Revenge.

That just doesn't sound very spiritual to me. Or moral.

I'd always thought that it we humans were supposed to be moving in a more positive direction. You know, away from the sadistic practices of folks like, oh, Vlad the Impaler and Augusto Pinochet and Pol Pot.

I always thought America was better than that.

What was I thinking?


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Peace Y'all