8/03/2005 11:12:00 AM|||kim|||

USA Today:

CANTON, Ohio — Pastor Russell Johnson paces across the broad stage as he decries the "secular jihadists" who have "hijacked" America, accuses the public schools of neglecting to teach that Hitler was "an avid evolutionist" and links abortion to children who murder their parents.

Washington Post:

The sleeping bag was the idea of a soldier who remembered how his older brother used to force him into one, and how scared and vulnerable it made him feel. Senior officers in charge of the facility near the Syrian border believed that such "claustrophobic techniques" were approved ways to gain information from detainees, part of what military regulations refer to as a "fear up" tactic, according to military court documents.

Steven Vincent:

Words matter. Words convey moral clarity. Without moral clarity, we will not succeed in Iraq.

I would say instead, that words are often used to create the illusion of moral clarity. (Another argument is that moral clarity is itself a meaningless phrase.) I don't think it's a coincidence that a block of the war supporters and fundamentalists both use similarly emotionally charged language. To a large extent, they even sound alike. In both cases the world is divided into Us and Them. And Us by necessity is morally clear.

Dualistic thinking provides a basis for self-justification, to disguise even sadistic practises, such as the torture example above, as being part of the larger plan of "moral clarity".

Or, to put it differently: Who Would Jesus Torture?

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