24 envy

Does it make me a bad liberal that I've been waiting two years for 24 to come back on TV? Even worse, I kind of wanted Jack Bauer to follow through with the pen last night. The thing is, I suspect a lot of people don't object to torturing "bad people," if there's a massive and imminent threat and you know the guy can stop it. The problem is, define "bad," and just as important, how do you know you've got the right guy? It's easy to say you're only for torturing "terrorists" - but how do you know the guy you caught is really a terrorist if you don't even put him on trial? And it's even easier to say "some mistakes are an acceptable risk," until the mistake is your mom, dad, son or daughter.

The example we were given in law school was something along the lines of "a nuclear bomb is set to go off in Manhattan, millions of people will be killed, you've got the one guy in your possession who you know for a fact knows where the bomb is - do you torture it out of him?" The problem is, putting aside the discussion of whether torture even works (much evidence shows that people will say anything, usually a lie, to stop from being tortured), how many times are we really in a scenario where millions of lives are imminently at stake, and how many times are we truly 100% certain that the guy in custody is guilty? Hell, Bush and company are so unsure of the case they've got against the guys in Gitmo, they won't even try them in a civilian court.

I think, in the end, the 24-watcher's love of show/objection to torture can be reconciled. 24 is television. It's fiction. And, as Dr. Ruth will tell you, fantasies aren't necessarily a bad thing, even when they're "bad" on paper. The problem is when you confuse fantasy with reality, or a TV show with national security policy.