Dignity is not optional

I saw this frame in a political cartoon last week, and it really bothered me. (Click on the frame for the whole cartoon. Source) Though satirical, I find the artist's perspective repugnant, and think it deserves a good deconstruction.

In its mockery of John McCain, the cartoonist presents several underlying assumptions: 1.) It’s OK to assume someone is guilty if it’s about terrorism, 2.) When dealing with matters of U.S. national security, it’s OK to ignore an individual’s rights., and 3.) Waterboarding is just “pouring water up someone’s nose.”

First, the cartoon dismisses as irrelevant the concept of habeas corpus, that a person can’t be held without charge or the ability to defend themselves in court. As I recall, one of the reasons we’re fighting a war against terrorism is “to promote freedom.” Yet in Guantanamo Bay, we’ve been holding “enemy combatants” without charge and and without trial for over five years, based simply on unverifiable and unchallengeable accusations.

One may say that’s all right because they aren’t U.S. citizens, but Americans have been held there, too. The only reason the administration released and tried Jose Padilla in a civilian court was because the Supreme Court looked like it might intervene.

Consider this quote from Woodrow Wilson:
“We set this Nation up to make men free, and we did not confine our conception and purpose to America, and now we will make all men free. If we did not do that, all the fame of America would be gone, and all her power would be dissipated.” (An Address to Boston, February 24, 1919. Papers of Woodrow Wilson, p.55)

Since when is freedom only for Americans?

Second, the cartoon promotes the idea that “thousands of American lives” are worth the sacrifice of one person’s rights. But you can’t argue that “the greater good” supercedes “rights.” Tyrants throughout time and have argued that. We rebelled against England because of that. Even today, China argues that (of course, they call it “social stability,” but it’s the same).

How can you compromise a right and still claim to uphold it? How can we hold out the promises of democracy and freedom with one hand, then take them away with the other?


Third is the concept that waterboarding just “pouring water up someone’s nose.” Back in the distant past, back when we felt secure behind the protection of two oceans, we considered it torture. What has changed? The fact that we now feel that same fear that other nations have for centuries?

We seemed fine with the Geneva Convention’s constraints, so long as they applied to other nations. But now that our own security is at stake, such “high-minded principles” are, as then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales put it, “quaint.” ¹ The rest of the world recognizes this as hypocrisy. Why can’t we?

We cannot afford to tear down all that we have built in the past century and retreat into a selfish short-sightedness. Throughout our history, we have cherished our role as a “city on a hill,” a beacon of democracy and freedom². In overcoming slavery and ensuring civil rights for all, we have progressively torn down the contradictions between our society and our ideals. How can we renege on our principles?

The best future for Americans lies in upholding the values we have professed to the world -- that Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness are values all men can share equally.

"Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity." -- George W. Bush. 2003 State of the Union Address³