Torture, a Transformative Issue

Andrew Sullivan is looking at a piece in the New Yorker on the torture of American victims military detainees. In one post, he quotes Alberto Mora, former general counsel for the Navy:

To my mind, there's no moral or practical distinction. If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America —— even those designated as 'unlawful enemy combatants.' If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles. It's a transformative issue.

That may sound idealistic, but this country is supposed to stand for something. It is supposed to espouse the basic values we want the rest of the world to embrace. (And I think the places of the world we want to emulate us have already mastered the art of torture, so they don't need us to show them how to do it.) When our president twists and perverts some of our more basic values, and we the people accept it, we are changed. It's not just the Constitution that crumbles under the boot of a president who feels himself above the law and bound to no standard of morality or legality. It is the very heart of our nation, of who we are and what we say we believe that crumbles.