Wednesday, December 17, 2014

What kind of society produces physicians who will supervise waterboarding and “rectal feeding,” or psychologists

"We are a nation whose constitutional commitment to high-flown Enlightenment ideals is undermined by a vein of mendacity that too often makes the whole enterprise feel like an elaborate self-delusion. We have long been such a nation, maybe from the beginning. By day, Thomas Jefferson wrote passionate and glorious prose about the rights of man; by night, he pursued his manly privilege in the slave quarters." "What kind of society produces physicians who will supervise waterboarding and “rectal feeding,” or psychologists who spin the supervision of a secret torture program into an $80 million government contract? What ideal of America is being preserved by such methods, and will it bear their mark forever?" (thanks Amir)