Self-Congratulation

An article over at journalist Don Surber's blog notes how little the American media has picked up the story of the discovered Al Qaeda torture manual in contrast to the stories on terror they evidently prefer to run. A commenter made what he believed to be an morally earnest reply:

R. Schoenberg Says:
Mr. White has it right, that we left-progressives believe that we are supposed to know better, that our cultural tradition has hade torture illegal and immoral. And why is it a story that Al Queda has a torture manual? They are a truly evil organization, we have seen what they can do on TV, I was a witness to their evil having evacuated the North Tower on 9/11 just in time to look up and watch a 757 plow into the South Tower. So it’s no surprise to me.
But I do truly believe our country and culture is above the horrors of torture. I’ve seen plenty of bullies in my life (I’m using the term bully, but I have in mind an unprintable word) and I do not want to be one of them. What conservatives and Bush want is to turn my country into a bully, one that’s scarcely different from the other countries that behave like bullies. And I can only surmise from the attitude of conservatives on this issue that they are oblivious to what kind of people they have become, and what kind of people they are trying to force the rest of us to be.
(Surber's)Reply: We have tortured no one. We have imprisoned those who abuse prisoners. Your excuses for al-Qaeda are appalling. Look what you have become: Your weird hatred of Bush has twisted you so where you makes excuses for al-Qaeda’s use of torture. “It’s not news”? It is news, as is the news of the sickening silence on the left. Progressive? More new-speak from the left.

I wrote a reply as well, and liked it so much I'm showing it off to you.

R. Schoenberg, I would like to sympathise, as I believe you come to your views with sincerity and thought. Where I think you go wrong is in phrases like “scarcely different than other countries” and “what kind of people they have become.” One does not have to be pro-torture to recognise the profound difference between what our enemies do and what we do. One can even deplore and strive to punish and eliminate the worst of American acts without considering them to be remotely equivalent. Not all shades of gray are the same, and to refuse the side of very light gray against very dark gray is to refuse moral distinctions. Such moral equivalences do not bespeak a tender conscience, but a hardened one; not a moral sensitivity, but a coarseness. That it is held by people who consider themselves sensitive and well-meaning does not change that.
If a woman is attacked and fights dirty to protect herself, should she be condemned? That is not an exact analogy, but the answer to the question opens up the moral view I suggest.

Commenting is as least as much fun as blogging.