June 20, 2006

PERVERSION: THE CASE OF ANDREW SULLIVAN

Tortured20 Jun 2006 02:26 pm

"I doubt whether even Donald Rumsfeld will describe what has been done to two young American soldiers as a "coercive interrogation technique." But you never know. Some people wonder why I remain so concerned about torture, and the surrender of our moral standing with respect to this unmitigated evil. Maybe the news of captured, tortured and murdered Americans will jog their conscience. Or maybe it will simply reinforce the logic of torture-reciprocity endorsed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales. As usual, complete silence from Instapundit. Almost radio silence from the Corner, except for the torture-advocate, Mark Levin, who is urging reciprocal atrocities. Give him points for consistency. And so the cycle of depravity and defeat deepens ..."
---Andrew Sullivan

        Moral indignation is often a mask to hide the secret gratification in the very deeds the moralist condemns. Andrew Sullivan's peculiar preoccupation and fascination with torture always seems to contain an offputting element of erotic pleasure, just slightly disguised by his harumphing, high minded moral indignation. Sullivan's mode of thinking is perverse, in that, like sexual perversions that blur the differences between male and female, he blurs distinctions between modes of coercion, all becoming forms of "torture". His reaction to the actual bodily mutilation and murder of two captured American soldiers by the Jihadis gives the game away. You see, those very real tortures elicit virtually no condemnation of the perpetrators; instead they gratify Sullivan's perverse and fantastical need to blame--who else?-- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales. They and Mark Levin elicit his harshest condemnation. It's all just a "cycle of depravity" wherein distinctions are erased and Bush-Cheney, et. al. are the same as Jihadi savages. These days reading Sullivan makes one want to take a cleansing shower.