The Political Inquirer

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gives a BBC program some of his opinions on torture:

“It seems to me you have to say, as unlikely as that is, it would be absurd to say you couldn’t, I don’t know, stick something under the fingernail, smack him in the face. It would be absurd to say you couldn’t do that,” Scalia told British Broadcasting Radio Corp.

Scalia said that determining when physical coercion could come into play was a difficult question. “How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be? I don’t think these are easy questions at all, in either direction,” he told the BBC’s “Law in Action” program.

The problem is not whether the torture at that point is right or wrong, but that you cannot leave a discretionary power to the executive. Governments over the centuries have always abused power. Perhaps in one instance it would be justifiable to use torture. The atomic bomb is found and hundreds of thousands of lives are saved. What if, despite the torture, the prisoner lies, or the bomb isn’t there? The government tortured for pretty much no reason at that point. Some may argue that it was okay because there was a grave possibility of a threat. That is true. What if the government tortures political prisoners to make them succumb to the said government’s agenda?

The authority to torture is a powerful authority indeed. When a point is reached that one man or a body of men has the power to torture another man, that is essentially absolute power. No reprimands on their actions means absolute power is in their hands.

And as the great Lord Acton said,

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.