Archive for torture
An Immoral Act: Why Christians of Every Persuasion Should Renounce Torture
Posted by: | CommentsThis guest post is by LCC reader Jonathan Boatwright. Thank you for your submission, Jonathan! The views expressed in any guest article should not be construed as an official position paper of LibertarianChristians.com and are the work of the guest author alone.
There is a grand question before Christendom today. Many conservative pundits and television talking heads rail against the evil they find in the world. They condemn, denounce and otherwise opine with feverish rhetoric, against the evils of radical Islam and the terror begotten by such unscrupulous curs, and whoever they deem in need of a good verbal volley from their moral and religious cannons. They remind us of their Christianity, their religiosity and all that accompanies such beliefs. Likewise unwitting individuals who legitimately call themselves Christians sit up and unfortunately listen. An issue that many Christians get their marching orders from conservative pundits on is the issue of torture, specifically water boarding. Many individuals out of a belief that conservatism encompasses the all-knowing Mecca of right and wrong, and that such pundits are naturally right, swallow the vomitous codswallop that comes out of their television. What they hear are explanations of how water boarding isn’t torture, and how we gain information by it. But what many forget, while buying into such odious tripe, is their moral obligations as Christians. Ladies and gentlemen, as a Christian I grew up understanding that the Bible was not a hard book to understand. That application of its principles were simple. While there are indeed deep theological issues that encompass the Scriptures, this is not the principle topic at hand.
As we examine the debate from a Biblical standpoint, let us consider what Biblical precedent is lain down for us to follow. If we cannot follow the simple principles of Christianity, how can we follow those which may not be simple? I Thessalonians 5:15 states, “See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men. Plain, simple, yet profound in the area of Biblical precedent(s) against torture. Let us go on.
Former S.E.R.E. instructor and Navy officer Malcolm Nance, in writing for the website “Small Wars Journal,” made a short but profound statement on torture. He said, and I quote, “ We, as a nation, are having a crisis of honor.” A crisis of honor that not only extends to the very fabric of what America was founded on, but to the very Christian soul of America. So I ask you Christian America, how can we defend torture. We cannot! We Must Not!
The typical rejoinder heard from not only Christian conservatives, but all conservatives, is a brief blurb about how they do not afford us the same courtesy. That can simply be answered by quoting Luke 6:31, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And can further be qualified by adding, “even if the person doing unspeakable things to you does not afford you the same courtesy.” If Christ turned the other cheek, shouldn’t we, in our imperfect humanity, do the same? Outside of glorifying God, isn’t our aim to be as much like HIM as we can? I recently heard it asserted that Christ would have approved of torture. First, I cannot believe that with such blatant principles staring them in the face that someone would make such a completely baseless assertion! By virtue of Christ turning the other cheek, and admonishments of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “Render not evil for evil,” I can see no reason why Christ would approve of torture.
That theologically conservative Christians alike approve of, abide by and defend torture, makes me wonder if my country is no longer a country of law, but of men. A nation of men abides by torture and the usurpation of their rights, out of fear. A government politico, television pundit or even the President himself defend measures that usurp rights and explain away all moral decency as measures necessary to protect us. A nation of law falls back on the established precedent of the law, and the morality of its religious based heritage. As Christians we fall back on the moral principles and heritage of our upbringing. To deny this is to deny our nations religious heritage. It is to deny that free men are compelled by morality and just law. For a Christian to defend torture is to deny their Christian heritage and the very Biblical morality which emanates from the pages of Scripture. As I once heard it said, it is not about the terrorist, it is about our very soul. As Americans and as Christians if we approve of torture, what is next? Are we going to sacrifice what little remains of our sense of morality, and the few rights that we have after the next disastrous attack? Are we going to sacrifice our rights when the next politician, pastor, priest or minister says so? God forbid! For the surrendering and usurping of our rights should be viewed as though it were no different than the sin we cry out against. Let us be vigilant to defend the gift of liberty God has given us.
Author Bio:
Jonathan Boatwright was raised in Central South Carolina before moving to the Philippines. His father is a former Independent Baptist Pastor, and is now a missionary in the Republic of the Philippines. He has been married for almost 2 years to his Filipina wife. He is continuing to aid his father from the United States by conducting ministry business on his father’s behalf. He also wants to be involved in Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty once he returns to the U.S. Follow him on Twitter, and go check out his new blog: the Liberty Light.
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Tags: guest posts, torture, war, war on terror
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Torture: What is at Stake?
Posted by: | CommentsThis guest post is by LCC reader Jonathan Boatwright. Thank you for your submission, Jonathan! The views expressed in any guest article should not be construed as an official position paper of LibertarianChristians.com and are the work of the guest author alone.
Many people associate the idea of torture with the looming specter of a tyrant of yesteryear or a modern sadistic monster of some unfortunate, oppressed and backwards nation. Torture is performed by jackbooted thugs with Swastika arm patches, brutal Japanese Kempetai military police, or the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, not by the United States, where we expect better of ourselves.
Yet today in many quarters of American life, from Average Joe to Washington politico, a debate rages over torture. The key issues are the moral status of “waterboarding,” and the contrived sobriquet of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Those who expect better of their country and her leadership in the area of torture are accused of not caring about the American lives at stake, or, God forbid, of being a liberal. Torture supporters attempt to justify their brutality using the faulty moral argument that because “they,” meaning the terrorists, do it to us, why not afford them the same courtesy? They say that forbidding torture means that we are “coddling” terrorists rather than treating them “as they deserve.” But to any Patriot who believes in the rule of law, justice, and rising above the barbarism of your enemy, these arguments have no basis in fact other than to attempt to disarm a torture opponent’s argument, and besmirch a torture opponent’s character.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know about you, but I personally believe that America loses a portion of what is left of her freedom loving heritage, her sense of goodwill, and also her right to oppose such heinous acts like torture, when she abdicates the moral high ground. Who are we as Americans, morally, if we approve of the very things we denounce other countries, governments, and, yes, even terrorists, of doing in this present day world? For what we now would make common place – and claim is morally justified – is precisely what we have prosecuted Japanese and German soldiers in War Crimes Tribunals in the Pacific and Europe. We have even prosecuted American soldiers for subjecting people to waterboarding in Vietnam. Not only is torture immoral, it cannot be legally justified when considered against the backdrop of history that emanates from other wars.
What do we become, or how low must we stoop if we approve of torture? We stoop to the level of scum and thugs who murder innocent people with projectile laden suicide bombs. We stoop to the level of people who murder people like Daniel Pearl and Nicholas Berg. We stoop to the level of people who have kidnapped American soldiers in Iraq, killed them, and dumped their disfigured corpses in the Euphrates. We stoop to the level of men who maim or murder their wives simply for being free-willed, or wanting to go to school, drive a car, or because their wife is too beautiful. We stoop to the level of men insane enough to commandeer four planes, take hostage the planes flight crew and passengers, and use those fuel laden planes as tools of death and destruction. We must think first about what we are losing when we attempt to justify torture. We are losing the right to be morally outraged when a terrorist kills Americans abroad or at home. We are also losing the right to be outraged when torture is used against our own troops.
In closing, the issue of torture is not about coddling terrorists. It is not about giving them special privileges. It is about honoring the heritage, or at least what’s left of it, that a collection of men began when they convened to write a Constitution that defined the rights of the free people who were taking part an experiment known as the United States of America. Justifying torture undermines one of the core principles of being an American: doing unto others what we would expect to be done unto us, even to those who we know won’t afford us the same courtesy. This principle, which is a part of an even greater American Heritage, I will vigorously and fervorently defend, not for the sake of pampering terrorists, but for the sake of the country I love so much, The United States of America.
Author Bio:
Jonathan Boatwright was raised in Central South Carolina before moving to the Philippines. His father is a former Independent Baptist Pastor, and is now a missionary in the Republic of the Philippines. He has been married for almost 2 years to his Filipina wife. He is continuing to aid his father from the United States by conducting ministry business on his father’s behalf. He also wants to be involved in Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty once he returns to the U.S. Follow him on Twitter, and go check out his new blog: the Liberty Light.
Please support LCC by sharing this post on your favorite social network.
Tags: ethics, torture, war on terror
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What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday was Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday. Happy birthday, our heroic anti-war American muse.
Here are some other articles of libertarian Christian interest that came up this weekend…
Bob Murphy writes about whether or not religion belongs in science or politics.
The inimitable Robert Higgs elaborates on what Jesus implied about property rights.
Laurence Vance wonders why Christians would ever support waterboarding.
Though not specifically Christian, this post about presidential speeches and word usage is VERY interesting and I highly recommend you at least take a look at the picture…
I’ve been extremely busy with my research and classes as this semester is drawing to a close, thus I haven’t been doing as much writing as I would like. I promise I have some great articles in the works and will share them soon. Plus, I have a podcast just waiting for some editing and I plan to post it this week. Stay tuned!
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Tags: history, rhetoric, theology, torture, war
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My Christian Brothers…
Posted by: | CommentsThanks, Jim, for this excellent work. I hope libertarian Christians all over the United States pass this on to their friends and family. Please take a moment and email this to your friends who need to hear this word from a very wise homeschooling father.
Leave Government and Cleave Unto Liberty
My Christian Brothers:
I do not understand why you are now so concerned about government. Nothing has changed. The US is still a democracy, ruled by the will of the majority, under a nominal constitution. And the US continues to have an imperial president, overseas wars and conflicts, and a strong internal state. Plus, this country has shown, time and again, the ability to transition peacefully from one ruling elite to another. Remember, you proudly cheered as our soldiers were sent to foreign lands in order to fight and kill for the very same political system you now question.
Sure, your ideas are no longer in the majority, but democracies always have minority views. And, since you are now in the political minority, you can begin grassroots efforts to once again attain political power. It is possible that within two years, you can foist anew your agenda on the rest of the population – you can feed the Leviathan so that, when it is once again unchained by your enemies, it will turn on you with a vengeance.
For years, I’ve listened to you defend government. You play a game of verbal reasoning when you vote for government interventions and then wash your hands by stating, “We must follow the civil authorities.” Conservative Christians are a significant portion of the electorate, not a majority, but a significant portion nonetheless. For years, you encouraged government to intervene in all aspects of life. Government agreed. And now, that very same power to intervene is being used against you. Did you really expect any other outcome?
In Romans, when Paul wrote about obeying the civil authorities, he meant obeying civil authorities with respect to issues within their purview. So, yes, Christians are not to engage in actions that violate property, etc., such as participating in food riots similar to those that were breaking out throughout Rome. But Paul never meant for Christians to act as Caesar in the polling station, or in political office, and then turn around and fall back on the cover of the civil authority.
As Christians, we believe that the family and marriage are godly institutions. But you encouraged government to intervene and disrupt those very same institutions. Where marriage and family exist under God, you fought the political fights to move them under the nominal authority of the state. A true apostasy. And now you are paying the wages of that sin.
I recently listened to a segment on American Family Radio that described waterboarding as nothing more than an effective method of interrogation. Torture? Absolutely not. No external marks and no blood, therefore no torture. That waterboarding was used in the Spanish Inquisition to punish and intimidate, and to force confessions, and that the psyche and mind are damaged or destroyed in the process, is of no concern, whatsoever.
The American myth of my youth was the image of the liberating American soldier handing chocolate to the children of our enemies. Torture was a tool of the totalitarian states. The great democracy – the US – lived under rules of law, with the same protections granted to all.
That myth is long gone; condensed into the stream of water that triggers a drowning reaction in the mind of the interrogated. Yet, my conservative Christians brothers, you do not even hesitate when distorting that myth. Where torture was a repulsive act of repression, it is now an essential duty in the home of the free – a Christian duty nonetheless.
My conservative Christian brothers, do you not recognize this: That very same technique will likely be used on you at some point in the future.
Ask yourselves this: While you deconstruct the act of waterboarding and stand behind it as just another means to the truth, will you be surprised when, during the next Inquisition, it’s you on a board, tilted slightly, with a government agent slowly opening the faucet? Will you be surprised?
Of course, you now cry a similar tune when lamenting the lost freedom of speech. You are in fear that the power you gave government will be turned against you. You fear – justifiably – that you will no longer be able to preach the Bible – as the Bible is no longer the truth of those in power – without facing legal threats, jail, or the waterboard.
But when you worship democracy – the golden calf of government – above God of the Bible, you should expect nothing else. You should not feign surprise as Aaron did when telling Moses that the calf just appeared out of the fire – that none of it was his creation, nor his handiwork.
Nevertheless, you still look to government as your solution. And you continue to choose the Republican Party as your unequally-yoked partner. Yet it was your Republicans who gladly arrogated more rights than you abrogated. They said that you would only be safe under a stronger state – and you believed.
So, you have exchanged freedom – such as the freedom to preach the Bible – for a false promise of security, much like our biblical forefathers exchanged the yoke of a king for the false promise of security from the neighboring nations.
Of course, they ended up trembling before Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, who said, “My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.” Just as, in the very same manner, you tremble today before the scorpions of Obama, son of Bush.
The issue is more than security. Just like Israelites desiring a king in order to impress neighboring nations, you look to an imperial president and expansive military to impress the countries of the world. You relish in a government that can stomp the planet in boots and uniforms, while seeing enemies at every turn.
We sometimes ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” I must ask, “Would Jesus cheer waterboarding as a means to the truth? Would He partner with the Republican Party, or any political party for that matter, in order to achieve worldly power? Would He partner with the state to save lives and win souls? Would He?”
My Christian Brothers, we have to break free from the state. We must stop looking to the next election and the Republican Party as our salvation. And we must stop using the sword of government for our purposes. “For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
Note: While the left seeks to desensitize us to moral perversity, the right seeks to desensitize us to violence. And both seek to desensitize us to the evils of power.
April 28, 2009
Jim Fedako is a homeschooling father of six who lives in Lewis Center, OH, and maintains a blog: Anti-Positivist.
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This article was originally published on LewRockwell.com, and full credit is given to the writer Jim and to LRC. Thanks once again, Jim, for this marvelous piece.
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Tags: ethics, theology, torture, war
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Dick Cheney admits he is a war criminal
Posted by: | Comments“I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn’t do… And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.” ~Dick Cheney
Keep in mind the history: Japanese interrogators and officials were prosecuted as war criminals after World War II for practicing waterboarding. We thought it heinous enough then that it should be prosecuted, but our current “Christians” in office such as Bush and Cheney and the Christians who still blindly support them seem to think otherwise.
Indeed, why do Christians think that torture is permissible in the least? Shouldn’t the fact that torture has to be justified at all give a Christian pause? It is not as if torture gives reliable information – time and again interrogators have proven this. I wonder if the reason lies in the back of their minds, in the idolatry of the State that it can do no evil outside of abortion and gay marriage.
Here is an excerpt from the interview:
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Tags: bush, cheney, iraq, News, torture, war, war on terror
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Norman is the creator and primary writer for LCC. Learn a little bit about him in the