Free Speech, Jack Bauer style

This makes me proud of my country:

The genre of the right-wing pro-torture thriller is on a roll, propelled by Beck and Limbaugh. Jason Zengerle has a terrific piece in the new TNR on the phenomenon:


With Chapter 50 of Pursuit of Honor, Flynn appears to be angling for a new level of conservative street cred. The chapter finds Rapp sitting in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has asked him to explain his torture of a Saudi terrorism suspect. After being scolded for his “immoral techniques” by Carol Ogden--a California Democrat (and thinly veiled send-up of Barbara Boxer) who “moved in the elite circles of her party, listening to the trial lawyers, academics, and the nuttiest of the crazy special-interest groups”--it’s Rapp’s turn to address the committee. “[W]hat do you think is more morally reprehensible,” he asks, “dislocating the arm of a terrorist … or sticking a steel spike into the brain of an eight-and-a-half-month-old fetus and then sucking his brains out[?]”

As much as I don't care for the polarizing, ridiculous commentary, I'm glad to live in a country that tolerates its own citizens calling each other evil. I will continue to work against such calls and feelings, but it will be with a smile on my face, and thankfulness that even the most crazy must be convinced (or ignored) and not arrested.