Hanson on torture

Victor Davis Hanson once wrote an interesting book on agrarianism. Since then, he has gone batty. The excerpt below is taken somewhat out of context. But it really doesn't matter. He said this in his article yesterday, Reject Torture for Our Own Sake.

The question for a liberal democracy is not whether torture is effective, but whether its value is worth the bad publicity and demoralizing effect on a consensual society that believes its cause and methods must take a moral high ground far above the enemy's.

And if pedophilia is widely accepted by other countries and is considered good publicity for its celebration of youth, then by all means the US should consider its publicity "value".... Conservatives decry "relativism" in liberal culture. I invite them to take a primer in philosophy and learn a little bit about what relativism means since I haven't heard more relativistic (and just plain nutty) policy statements from the conservatives than during the past six years. In fact, I invite these folks to take a primer course in "value".