April 30 at 12:01PM
Jon Stewart: Antonin Scalia's Tortured View of Cruel and Unusual Punishment
You want semantics? You got semantics. We'll even throw in a little Grand Theft Auto IV reference for all you gamers out there awake enough to pry your mitts off of the controller:
Does any of torture talk have any blowback on the Republican Party, or is John McCain going to quash all that nonsense should he make it to the White House?
PERMALINK:
RSS
![](\"http://www.comedycentral.com/images/sitewide/mtvn_logo.jpg\"/){kind=logo}
Despite my reservations about Scalia, it's important to notice that he has at least stated that what went on in Abu Graib was actually torture, which is a much greater acknowledgement than we've received from some other public officials.
When Jon Stewart makes stories like this and then claims that his show is only "comedy" it kinda demeans the guy and the show. Anyway, your love affair with the democrat party and obama is kinda obvious.
PS. I remember when this was a REAL "comedy" show and not a platform for political talking points.
GO SCALIA!!!
Why dont you reserve this piece for Air America?
Deshaw,
Good points, but since when are political talking points NOT comedy?! Stewart, especially with his political bias, has nailed it!
Jon Stewart is using his show as an editorial-political platform. Sure he calls it "comedy"…. *barfs*
is this even comedy?
Scalia was profiled in Stewart's new "the Horror" segment.
Isn't torture punishment for not talking?
Hi Terry,
I used those common sources to prove the simple point that "it's been done," to answer Scalia's question: "Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment?"
A reasonable, literate person is surrounded by the widely-available definition that torture is a kind of punishment. It's part of the basic definition of the word. Chris's point that the legal definition is probably something slightly different than what the OED offers is valid (by the way the OED is no slacker source on a language basis). I'm not trying to explore the total legal definition because Scalia wasn't either. If you go back and listen to the interview, in that moment, Scalia is talking about common usage. Leslie Stahl poses the example of a policeman torturing someone for information, and Scalia says, "When he's hurting you to get information from you, you don't say he's 'punishing' you." Scalia is playing pure semantics here.
That is not an exploration of the legal nuances of torture or punishment. He does not go to that level for justification. He stays on the realm of common usage. So it's perfectly valid to critique him on those grounds. He ends by saying: "That's my view and it happens to be correct." Excuse me if I don't find that line of argument persuasive.
There really is a common sense aspect here. Do we really want to suggest that our legal definitions should bear no semblance to the common usage and understanding of something? I'm not a legal brief writer and don't claim to be. I do however care about common, reasonable language and when people try to manipulate it. If Scalia had offered his vast knowledge at this point, I might have been persuaded or at least would have seen his perspective. But he is simply playing word games (and not all that well in this moment).
Kathy
If you want to punish someone for not talking and decide to administer torture, then torture is punishment.
But if you are going to administer torture as a means to force someone to talk, then it is not punishment.