Time
To Fire Jack Bauer
While we’re at it, let’s close Gitmo
by
Casey
Khan
by Casey Khan
DIGG THIS
 There’s
no doubt, Jack Bauer as portrayed by the talented actor Kiefer Sutherland,
has become an American cultural icon of late. As the hero of the
smash television production, 24,
Bauer often uses torture, lies, and theft to save the free world
from annihilation at the hands of terrorists.
The Bauer character,
championed by many prominent conservatives, is hailed through consequentialist
justifications for doing evil. Michael Brendan Dougherty’s excellent
piece
in the American
Conservative lays out a list of conservative Bauer devotees,
including: Kathryn
Jean Lopez, Ben
Shapiro, and Cal
Thomas. Recently, in response to whether torture is justified
in stopping a nuke attack, Tom Tancredo ironically exclaimed:
"[W]e’re
wondering about whether waterboarding would be a bad thing to
do? I’m looking for Jack Bauer at that time!... We are the last
best hope of Western Civilization. When we go under, Western Civilization
goes under."
Justice Antonin
Scalia reminds
us that, after all, Jack Bauer’s methods saved the city of Los Angeles.
Of course in TV land, My
Little Ponies fly. But, back to the real world and while we’re
speaking of a federal judge, when confronting arguments that some
of the Gitmo prisoners might be innocent, Justice Scalia replies,
"I don’t care about holding people. I really don’t." Finally,
when asked about interrogation techniques, the new euphemism for
torture, candidate Mitt Romney argues:
"I want
them on Guantanamo, where they don't get the access to lawyers
that they get when they're on our soil. I don't want them in our
prisons. I want them there. Some people have said we ought to
close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo."
Such is the
Jack Bauer–induced garbage coming out of conservative brains
that flow "from the fullness of the heart [which] the mouth
speaks." (Mat 12:34).
But before
we jump into prudish moralizing about torture, Deroy Murdock informs
us that all is not bad at Gitmo. After all, non-lethal waterboarding
aside, the inmates get great health care, dental fillings, psychiatrists,
the ability to care for a veggie garden, a weekly movie for good
conduct, and the ability to watch episodes of the Discovery Channel’s
Deadliest
Catch. What I want to know is do the Gitmo detainees get
to watch Jack Bauer on 24? I guess not, since that would
give away our counter-terrorism plans [sic fantasies].
Anyway, Mr. Murdock says we should be proud of Gitmo and keep people
locked up regardless of their proven guilt. These Moslem types are
fanatics, of which those who’ve left Gitmo have recently engaged
in acts of violence against the US military in Afghanistan. No word
on whether the former inmates were upset about the waterboarding
[Nota bene: conservatives, I’m not saying terrorists are
justified because of waterboarding either, their acts are evil as
well].
That’s right,
almost forgot, the federal government engages in waterboarding at
Gitmo. Nice try Mr. Murdock, but it doesn’t matter if the inmates
were taken to Club Med or the presidential suite at the Waldorf
Astoria. If these people are being tortured by means of waterboarding,
no justification by reason of hotel amenities will suffice. Nor
is this torture ethically justified by any perceived benefits that
might arise from it, including saving the Brooklyn Bridge, the city
of Los Angeles, or the planet Earth. This of course doesn’t mean
that one cannot do good things to defend from imminent danger. But
the evil heart is lazy, and can only comprehend evil methodologies.
"A good person brings forth good out of a store of goodness,
but an evil person brings forth evil out of a store of evil."
(Mat 12:35).
The late great
Pope John Paul II, speaking
magisterially in Veritatis Splendor, mentions physical
and mental torture, as well as arbitrary imprisonment, as intrinsically
evil acts, condemned by the Church. According to Augustine and Aquinas,
evil is essentially the lack of good. Not the opposite of good,
but the lacking of it. In his work On
Evil, Aquinas states that evil "harms a good composed
of potentiality and actuality insofar as evil takes away from such
a good its perfection" (p.57). Both torture and arbitrary imprisonment
are acts which always take away from and individual the potentiality
and actuality of their human dignity. Waterboarding takes place
when one is tied to a board and loads of water are dumped down the
throat to cause a gag reflex and simulate drowning. Short of the
psychotic, all know that this act performed upon themselves, to
be a violation against themselves. Further, all know, from their
own hearts, arbitrary imprisonment to be wrong as well. Therefore,
one need not be a Catholic or a Christian to understand what evil
acts of waterboarding or random imprisonment are.
But Justice
Scalia asks,
"So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes.
And ought we believe in these absolutes." In a brief answer
to the first question, we Americans as a whole no longer believe
in such absolutes. For example, most Americans have no problem with
the consequentialist justifications for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nor do many Americans have any problem with aborting a child to
defend the life of a mother. Americans, whether liberal or conservative,
are mostly moral relativists, even when it comes to the sanctity
of human life.
In answering
the second question, whether we ought to believe in absolutes, like
condemning torture to always be intrinsically evil, we should turn
to Tom Tancredo’s invocation of Western Civilization, formerly known
as Christendom. We as Americans must remember that what made Western
Civilization the city shining on the hill was none other than Christianity.
Western notions of criminal justice, due process, humane treatment
of prisoners, and war justification all form their basis through
the confidence westerners maintained through the study of Christian
theology. (For more on this thesis, see Thomas Woods How
the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization and Rodney
Stark The
Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism,
and Western Success). We see many of these absolutes in
America’s founding documents. Whether it is the Declaration of
Independence speaking of inalienable rights of all human persons
or the U.S. Constitution denying the federal government arbitrary
powers, these ideals owe their basis from Christianity and Christendom.
Heck, even the modern federal code prohibits such evil under 18
U.S.C. § 2340. So much for conservatives who worship law and
order. If we really don’t want Western Civilization to go under,
then we must defend these absolutes. Otherwise we become the barbarians;
we only hope it is not too late.
 Therefore,
we must kill Jack Bauer in earnest. His propaganda further poisons
the American mindset, offering hope through evil means. Which begs
the question, can we kill Jack Bauer that good may come? Fortunately,
Jack Bauer is a fictional character which can be written off in
a screenplay and not an actual person to be murdered. Besides, he
could be killed off by some natural accident or cause, like slipping
and falling in the shower or dying of some unknown brain tumor.
Instead of calling the next season 24, the producers could
call it 7/7/07 Hour 7, Minute 7, Second 7, when Jack
Bauer’s life flashes before his eyes from a massive heart attack.
Standing before him is the Judge
of his evil ways. As for Gitmo, charge the inmates with crimes before
a US court of law, bring home the Marines, and burn it down. Gitmo
has gone from a relatively noble view as a fort in the cold war
struggle, to the pervasive view of a torture shack. Who cares if
the inmates get caviar and perfume; what is done there is plainly
and simply evil.
Oh and finally
when people ask, why did Jack Bauer die? Lt.
Jonathan Kendrick, USMC, of 1st Plt, Bravo Company,
Windward Division, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, can answer:
"I believe
in God, and in his son Jesus Christ, and because I do, I can say
this: [Jack Bauer] is dead and that's a tragedy. But he's dead
because he had no code. He's dead because he had no honor. And
God was watching."
July
9, 2007
Casey
Khan [send him mail]
lives with his wife and two boys in Pheonix, AZ. He was honorably
discharged from the United States Marine Corps Reserve in October
2003.
Copyright
© 2007 LewRockwell.com
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Khan Archives
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