Scalia Twisting Words
Everyone, at one time or another, is guilty of twisting some piece of knowledge or information to their own benefit, but some really own their ability to completely fuck up context.
Take Supreme Court Judge Scalia’s interesting way of skirting around the ideas of torture
[H]as anyone ever referred to torture as punishment?
Now to give Scalia a little credit; no, we do not usually refer to torture or punishment as interchangeable terms or as a current mode of acceptable punishment. A quick look at dictionary.com quickly shows a relationship however.
1.the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.
Already the two terms are connected. Add a look at the history of capital punishment and we can see plenty of examples. Perhaps most famously is the medieval practice of hanging, drawing, and quartering. For those whose history classes are a little fuzzy this is when you would be hung, until you were almost dead; then sliced opened and your guts pulled out to be burned with your genitals that they had just chopped off; finally your head was cut off and you were separated into four quarters. The entire intent was to cause the most pain before you died and of course to make a visual spectacle of you. If that isn’t torture than what the fuck is?
Now certainly Scalia is referring to torture as a type of coercion, but to take the stance that it is completely distinct from the idea of punishment is completely disingenuous. The real question is when does coercion turn into punishment for not giving the desired answers.
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