It's Time to Talk About the John Y*o "Prank"
Many of you have probably seen the video of a "prank" an Australian comedy show pulled on Professor Y*o in a Boalt classroom. I'm not going to link it here, but it was on abovethelaw recently, and I'm sure you can google it. Knock yourself out.
Obviously, how you feel about this video is inextricably tied to the way you feel about the whole "academic freedom vs. possible ethical violations and general horribleness of torture" debate that we have waged in the comments ad nauseum. I'm not really interested in talking about that. I want to know how it made you feel as a student or alumnus of Boalt and someone who has encountered Professor Y*o in real life.
When I watched the video, I felt sick. It struck me as a heinous violation of the sanctity of a classroom and a hostile invasion of a place I consider home. It felt more like an attack than a joke. More than that, I felt bad for Y*o. I don't agree with his opinions on executive authority, but all he was trying to do that day was teach. I could sense his shame at being forced to end the course over something that had so little to do with his job at Boalt. It seemed like his sins were being visited upon his students, which strikes me as unfair no matter how terrible the sin. For lack of a more eloquent term, the whole thing just seemed gross.
This video hit the same week as Bruno, which I found pretty hilarious. Sure, it also left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth initially, but I laughed it off with a shrug. I figured those people deserve it! This discrepancy got me thinking about the cost of relevant comedy. I loved Borat and The Ali G Show. I love the correspondent segments on The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's interviews with congresspeople. Comedy involving real people mixes humor with comeuppance, and it's a potent combination. Laughing feels twice as great when mixed with smug self-righteousness. But Y*o is the first person I've seen in one of these videos who I actually know. This is the first time the comedy has invaded my world, and it completely changed the way I felt. If it had been Dick Cheney on his ranch instead of John Y*o in my school, I would have laughed my ass off.
Is that natural, or am I a hypocrite? Do I need to completely rethink the way I view comedy, or are these Australian guys just not funny? I don't know the answers to these questions, but the video has forced me to consider whether harmless fun ever is, and if not, whether harmful fun can ever be worth it. How'd it make you feel?
UPDATE: Apparently this incident occurred at Chapman, not Boalt. I was wondering why he was teaching in such a small classroom!
UPDATE: News of a new film by the "Yes Men" along similar lines, but with large corporations as the targets. I guess this will be the first test of my newfound skepticism of guerrilla comedy. Then again, it sounds pretty damn funny.
Obviously, how you feel about this video is inextricably tied to the way you feel about the whole "academic freedom vs. possible ethical violations and general horribleness of torture" debate that we have waged in the comments ad nauseum. I'm not really interested in talking about that. I want to know how it made you feel as a student or alumnus of Boalt and someone who has encountered Professor Y*o in real life.
When I watched the video, I felt sick. It struck me as a heinous violation of the sanctity of a classroom and a hostile invasion of a place I consider home. It felt more like an attack than a joke. More than that, I felt bad for Y*o. I don't agree with his opinions on executive authority, but all he was trying to do that day was teach. I could sense his shame at being forced to end the course over something that had so little to do with his job at Boalt. It seemed like his sins were being visited upon his students, which strikes me as unfair no matter how terrible the sin. For lack of a more eloquent term, the whole thing just seemed gross.
This video hit the same week as Bruno, which I found pretty hilarious. Sure, it also left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth initially, but I laughed it off with a shrug. I figured those people deserve it! This discrepancy got me thinking about the cost of relevant comedy. I loved Borat and The Ali G Show. I love the correspondent segments on The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's interviews with congresspeople. Comedy involving real people mixes humor with comeuppance, and it's a potent combination. Laughing feels twice as great when mixed with smug self-righteousness. But Y*o is the first person I've seen in one of these videos who I actually know. This is the first time the comedy has invaded my world, and it completely changed the way I felt. If it had been Dick Cheney on his ranch instead of John Y*o in my school, I would have laughed my ass off.
Is that natural, or am I a hypocrite? Do I need to completely rethink the way I view comedy, or are these Australian guys just not funny? I don't know the answers to these questions, but the video has forced me to consider whether harmless fun ever is, and if not, whether harmful fun can ever be worth it. How'd it make you feel?
UPDATE: Apparently this incident occurred at Chapman, not Boalt. I was wondering why he was teaching in such a small classroom!
UPDATE: News of a new film by the "Yes Men" along similar lines, but with large corporations as the targets. I guess this will be the first test of my newfound skepticism of guerrilla comedy. Then again, it sounds pretty damn funny.
Labels: Rabid Liberals, Yoo-Hoo
posted by Dan at 8:35 AM
57 Comments:
I have found that it is much easier to laugh at people when you have never encountered them as a "real" person.
Even if we disagree with Professor Yoo, is is someone that we have come to know during our time at Boalt. We never want to see someone we know humiliated.
I bet, though many may not believe, that if Cheney was a family friend of yours, that you would be shocked at his treatment as well. Just a guess.
I'm sure I would. That's the problem, I suppose. Or the solution? I'm so confused.
Here's the thing with this video, and this style of humor in particular. When it's done cleverly, it's great. Dan, you bring up the examples of Borat/Bruno, John Stewart's correspondents, etc... The difference here is that the Yoo prank isn't clever. It's just a guy in a hood, standing up in a classroom. There's no clever entendre, no witty wordplay. I suspect if there was, John Yoo would play along and love it.
The smug self-righteousness mentioned earlier tends to blind otherwise intelligent people into saying things they don't mean. Combined with smart editing, this makes for great videos. Yoo is on the higher end of the intelligence spectrum and is less likely to be suckered into such a prank, but one angle where it might succeed would be if someone played the part of extreme pro-torture.
Anyway, F for effort.
Humor is great, and life would suck without it. But humor is also a cocky way of masking complexity and dodging moral issues, and I think that's what you're feeling.
JY is one of the best professors I have ever had, and one of the most intelligent men I have ever met. I also spent much of last semester on a paper that concluded even if the torture memos' position was legal under United States law and the Geneva Conventions it should be rejected for moral and philosophical reasons, because it requires legal reasoning that is incompatible with the basic principles upon which our legal system operates. In other words, even if legal, they should be rejected because they mark a break from the rule of law.
Anyone who thinks the issues involved here are simple is fooling themselves. I'm sympathetic to our professor, and I feel sickened by the treatment he has received. I'm also sympathetic to detainees and feel even more sicked by the treatment they have received. That doesn't mean there is no room for humor, but there is a lot of heavy stuff going on, too. It's good of you to not lose sight of that.
(Also, there was one funny part of that video: the lady who ran in at the end looks freakishly like Mrs. Hipple, my 6th grade sex ed teacher. Ew.)
I thought the video was hilarious. As far as I'm concerned, Yoo should be disbarred and then fired (only after being disbarred or sanctioned -- I agree it's improper to fire someone without such formalities b/c it appears as if you are firing someone for his/her beliefs). He counseled his client to commit a crime -- major violation of the ethics rules. So I have no qualms about a silly prank. It is beyond comprehension to me that you all defend him. Perhaps if you actually knew or had met anyone who had been tortured (and before you all go shouting hypocrite, I used to work with torture victims), you would feel differently. It is easy to sit back and argue your position without having witnessed its effects.
Toney, to clarify I was referring to the smug self-righteousness of the viewer (which I have admittedly been), who gets to not only laugh at the prank's victim, but also judge him. Although it's certainly true that the prankees tend to be as self-righteous as the prankers, which I guess makes the whole thing fair game sometimes?
I also agree that part of the problem was this prank was not clever at all. If you have seen Bruno, it was more akin to the Ron Paul prank (which was more mean than funny and not at all clever) than the Cage Match prank (which was hilarious and brilliantly conceived).
Still, I think there's more going on here. Even though it's a lowest-common-denominator joke, I definitely would have found it funny if it was performed on someone I don't know who I can dismiss as deserving of it, like Dick Cheney. So yeah, in the end it's just not very clever, but my reaction to it went way beyond that.
Oh ok, I see where you're coming from. I guess my take on it is that I just don't think this prank was funny, regardless of the fact that it happened to one of my favorite targets. The same thing happening to Cheney might be funny because of his general codger-y-ness and potential reaction, but not because of any particular effort of the prankster. Maybe it's because John Yoo is 26 years younger, but he hardly skipped a beat. If Cheney reacted the same way, I just don't think I would laugh.
Now one way this could have been hilarious is if after Yoo asked the guy the first time to stop doing what he was doing, the guy took off the hood and just sat and participated in the rest of class, asking smart questions, etc. It would be SO AWKWARD.
Personally, I don't like this style of humor -- I always end up sympathizing with the poor schmuck who has to deal with bewildering circumstances, public embarrassment, etc..
Knowing Yoo or not, why should we enjoy witnessing someone else's pain?
Agree with 11:03. While I appreciated certain parts of Borat, I just feel really uncomfortable seeing people tricked and humiliated, even people whom I would probably not like very much in real life.
Generally, I hate this kind of humor too because of how predatory it is/can be. I just don't find it terribly funny.
I will say, however, that I don't mind it one bit if the target of the humor is Yoo, or Bush (the shoe incident), or Bill Gates (pie in the face), or everyone that's ever been pranked by the Yes Men. There's a difference between a comedy routine aimed at Yoo and one aimed at, say, impoverished residents of a small Romanian town (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-415871/Borat-film-tricked-poor-village-actors.html).
What is that difference? Power. Comedy is not funny when it prays on the weak and the vulnerable. It's an entirely differently story, though, when it exposes the powerful and the tyrannical.
Gina,
You state, "He counseled his client to commit a crime -- major violation of the ethics rules."
Can you please identify the line in which his memo (a) told, counseled, or directed U.S. operatives to execute interrogation methods, and (b) the source of law that defines those interrogation methods as a crime, as binding on the United States.
Those questions are rhetorical, though I invite you to answer them. I am elaborating on Patrick's point that this is not a simple issue.
honestly, I don't feel particularly sorry for Yoo. actions have consequences, and Yoo is a big boy.
and yes, some of us did come to know Yoo during our time at Boalt. some of us were less than impressed.
to his credit, he's polite and a good teacher. but, a sense of victimization is never appealing, and even less so considering Yoo's circumstances.
I don't think you can even call this a prank, its a disruptive protest, and not original at all. We've had the hooded demonstrators on campus for the last few years. Does it make it a "prank" because one snuck into the room and disrupted the class?
Did this actually happen at Boalt? I don't recognize the classroom. Did this happen at Chapman, where I think he was teaching last semester?
It was at Chapman.
To anonymous 12:15 PM. Yes I can, to both your questions. I wrote an entire paper about it -- it's 60 pages, if you'd like to read it. However, the answer is simply too long to recite on nuts and boalts, particularly when I'm studying for the bar exam. (I shouldn't even be checking this damn thing anyway, shame on me!) And for the record, not once did I say the issue was simple, hence my lenthy paper. Volumes of books could be written about it. I simply stated my conclusion, of which I feel quite confident. You are free to have a different one, and I agree arguments could be made either way. Ultimately, however, I do feel strongly that he violated the ethics rules, and my opinion is shared by many people who know a lot more and are a lot smarter than either you or I.
Man, I just can't feel sorry for anyone that believes it would be OK for the president to crush the testicles of a child in order to extract information from a detainee.
His intelligence, teaching abilities, conversational skills, etc. are completely IRRELEVANT.
We all must reap what we sow, even outside of a courtroom.
Agree wholeheartedly with Gina and with 1:50.
The fact that John Yoo is a nice guy in person, and a gifted teacher -- and also happens to be someone many of us know -- has almost nothing to do with the truly abominable decisions he made and (likely criminal) actions he took.
People have suffered, some of them grievously and for no reason at all, as a direct result of his actions. His work is despicable and should be sanctioned. The fact that he's a nice guy does not mitigate that, and in fact is completely unrelated.
Patrick: All of this is not nearly as complicated as you think it is, and I suspect that if you'd never met Yoo, you'd think the same thing. John Yoo did horrible reprehensible things. He's also a nice guy. Why is that complicated? Do you think Ted Bundy came across as as a homicidal maniac, or that Adolf Eichmann was completely antisocial? Evil can be really banal. That's not complicated at all. Evildoers can be intelligent. So what? They may even be good teachers. Again, so what?
Boalties who support Yoo need to learn to separate his sanctionable and possibly criminal behavior from his avuncularity and intelligence.
None of this is to say that the Australian prank was funny at all. I don't find this brand of humor funny in the slightest. It is cruel, generally, and mean-spirited. The fact that this didn't occur to some of you until the victim was someone you had met evidences a chilling lack of empathy. Rather Yoo-like, actually.
. . . and I suspect that if you'd never met Yoo, you'd think the same thing. John Yoo did horrible reprehensible things. He's also a nice guy. Why is that complicated? Do you think Ted Bundy came across as as a homicidal maniac, or that Adolf Eichmann was completely antisocial? Evil can be really banal. That's not complicated at all. Evildoers can be intelligent.
How is that NOT complicated?
Well, so much for my attempt to make this blog more about the boundaries of comedy than Yoo's memo. I suppose that was inevitable.
Also, "Comedy is not funny when it prays on the weak and the vulnerable."
I don't think prayer comedy is ever funny.
I'm reminded of the interviews that take place after a serial killer gets caught. All the neighbors say "Oh, he was so nice! He used to bring over potato salad!"
The true victim here is Dan, who didn't want to start this debate in the first place and is probably like awww crap. We're here for you, Dan.
2:19, Gina thought the video was "hilarious," so you apparently do not wholeheartedly agree with her.
This is not, however, the first time I have demonstrated a chilling lack of empathy.
Thanks, 2:32! I am here for you as well.
I think this kind of comedy serves to illustrate, and perhaps deepen, our socio-political divides. When it's someone you don't like, for whatever reason, it's hilarious. You can get some great schadenfreude from seeing someone from the other team go down. However, when it hits someone on your side, suddenly it's much less funny.
Despite his argument that the divide is between the powerful versus the powerless, I think 12:13 actually supports my point. The examples he gives are Bush, Bill Gates, and of course Yoo. Interesting that he didn't include the current president of the United States, arguably one of the most powerful men in the world. This isn't about the powerful versus the powerless. This is really about humor that plays on the same old "us against them" meme.
On this thread, it seems quite clear that the views on the Yoo video stem from how people view Yoo himself. Since Gina views him as something akin to Satan's offspring, she naturally finds the video hilarious. Others who are more inclined to see Yoo as on the "good" side are less amused.
I can see how this can be hard. We've been conditioned to think that the "other side" is so bereft of humanity that they ought to be the subject of every conceivable indecency. It's a bit disconcerting then when we realize that people don't always fit nicely into one of 2 categories. After all, if we can't definitively say what side of the line the person is on, how can we know whether we should hit them with the tar and feathers? Perhaps the real problem here is the way we view each other.
I'd like to get back to Dan's point which is: the prank just wasn't very funny.
I'm not saying "Leave John Yoo alone!" I'm not saying, "Hey, it's a touchy issue!" I'm saying, "Where are the lulz?"
I mean, a couple of guys come all the way over from Australia to infiltrate John Yoo's class...just to pull off the same schtick that Berkeley protesters have been doing for years? (At least the Berkeley protesters are funny, sometimes.) They couldn't come up with anything better than a costume and a few one-liners?
Aren't pranks supposed to fool someone into saying something stupid? I don't think making John Yoo say, "I'm going to have to end class early; I'll give you some time to leave before I tell security" really counts as some big success.
Here's a general rule: when you have to dub a laugh track into your video, then your prank wasn't very funny.
Actually, I would just like to point out that Berkeley protesters, by comparison, are very funny. Some of my favorites:
1. When they scream, "This is a silent protest!"
2. When they tie John Yoo's memos to the Berkeley tree-sit. (I don't know if we'll hear this anymore.)
3. When they yell out, "Do you think we like doing this!?!" (Yes, I think you do.)
4. When they would finish their protests and go to Strada for coffee.
Wow. Were you guys always this uptight or did law school make you that way? The video is a funny attempt at political satire.
The video is supposed to make Yoo uncomfortable. He is a political figure who took a controversial position and therefore fair game for satirists.
Just want to say thanks to 6:13 for the thoughtful discourse. You make some excellent points.
10:01, in answer to your obviously useful and worthwhile question, law school made me this way, but Patrick was born that uptight.
I also would like to say that calling these guys "satirists" gives them a good deal too much credit. Jonathan Swift and Voltaire were satirists. Jon Stewart is a satirist. These guys are children. I'm trying not to judge all Australian comedy based on this small but powerfully bitter taste.
And are they really the same guys who did the shoe and pie pranks like someone said above? (I thought the shoe guy was an Iraqi.) Both kinda funny, but again, not satire.
Anyway, I never said Yoo wasn't fair game, only that my experiences colored my reaction to this clip and made me think more than such things usually do. Let's not oversimplify the issue.
I don't know Dan, any former Prime Minister who refers to the treasurer as "all tip, no ice berg" has to have a pretty good sense of humor.
Also, putting a famous stand-up comedian (Wil Anderson) under hypnosis and getting him to laugh at stupid one-liners is pretty much the definition of satire. Part 2.
And more Paul Keating quotes.
I'm just upset the "pranksters" wasted the time of the students with this. I'm sure they're shelling out a lot for these classes. Couldn't these boobs have cornered Yoo in the hallway or something?
Apropos of nothing, the word verification I had to type in to post this was "hatingw." Yes, seriously. "Hating W."
Armen, pretty funny. I guess I'll clarify that what they did to Yoo was not satire, and I assume the commenter was not familiar with their apparently vast body of work, so in that sense I think it was not deserved.
Now I am become death, the destroyer of threads.
Have to agree that this is not funny, but mostly because the execution was poor, not because I feel the least bit bad for Yoo (though I have a little sympathy for his students, but it is only the end of one class). Maybe this would be funnier if I hadn't see the Berkeley protesters do similar things every year?
It would be funnier on Dick Cheney, not because I don't know him personally (I don't know JY personally either, I've just walked by him in the halls) but because this would be original if directed towards him.
I agree with Toney, someone pretending to be a student taking an extreme pro-torture stance would have been hilarious.
And this evening we learn that JY wrote that it would be perfectly constitutional to use military soldiers to arrest suspected terrorists on US soil. And Bush decided against it! Boy, you know you're on the fringe when even GWB isn't with you.
I have to say, I support academic freedom. I don't want him fired absent cause. But the drip-drip-drip about JY .. well, it makes me ever less secure in that stand.
But hey! He's a friendly guy! Who cares if his reasoning was almost used to have American tanks roll down the streets of an American suburb? He's a nice guy AND a good teacher! Right? So we should wring our hands about whether to crticize/punish/speak ill of him. Right, Patrick?
Yes, I remember how outraged everyone was when the US Air Force patrolled the skies over US cities after the 9/11 attacks. After all, stopping Al Qaeda members from committing terrorist attacks in the mainland United States is entirely a law enforcement matter. Didn't those pilots know about the posse comitatus act?
Carbolic: that's a bad analogy in several ways.
First, the posse comitatus act doesn't really address the air force. Armed fighter jets and tactical bombers crisscross our skies constantly -- literally all the time. It's just not the same has having U.S. troops marching through the streets.
Second, in the days right after 9/11 the country was literally under attack -- from the air. There's nothing that prevents the military from responding to direct attacks.
As for the Cheney/Addington/Yoo proposal to send the US Army into suburban New Jersey -- this was years later, when only a Yoo-type executive-branch fetishist could argue that we were "at war."
It is, I think almost everyone recognizes, an extreme view of the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act to believe that U.S. troops can march into American cities and take "enemy combatants." On the other hand, it is more than a mainstream view that the U.S. Air Force can send up planes, armed to the teeth, to fly around, basically whenever and wherever they want.
I think one byproduct of the fact that A-Q and the ilk haven't successfully initiated a post 9/11 attack in the United States is belief that the 9/11 was a singular, isolated incident, like the Oklahoma City Bombing. But that's just complacency.
To the extent that anyone could say that the U.S. was "at War" with A-Q on September 12, then that struggle is still ongoing. It remains the top priority of military, law enforcement, and intelligence services. And don't forget that we still have nearly 30,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Let me do a hypothetical. Assume a group of individuals who have amassed an amount of nerve gas in an Oakland apartment that is sufficient to kill 7,500 people. They plan on releasing the gas in the Bank of America building tomorrow. If they have the opportunity, they would also release the gas during any arrest attempt on the apartment.
Most would say that it would be appropriate for military forces to respond during and after the attack. Does it really make sense to say that it's exclusively a civilian matter the day before the attack occurs? After all, the focus isn't on law enforcement; it's on preventing the attack.
You're right, Carbolic. Whenever the president decides it's "war," under whatever definition the president decides to give "war," he ought to be able to call out the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines inside the United States to do whatever he tells them to. Great idea.
Politics has a way of infecting things. See Watergate break-in. Now imagine if Nixon had the ability to call out the full strength of the U.S. military to wage war against his domestic "enemies list." Go democracy.
In the Authorization for Use of Military Force, 115 STAT. 224, Congress authorized the President to use all necessary force against A-Q in order to prevent future act of international terrorism.
I think it's fair to say that the AUMF covered A-Q members in the United States. And because of Congressional authorization, Posse Comitatus doesn't apply.
Now, I'm not saying that I think it's a good idea for military force to be used. (Unless Annette Benning is involved...) And I can't say that it was necessary. (Although who really could, except in hindsight?) But to describe it as some fascist or illegal gambit is a bit much, I think.
Not positive, but I'm pretty sure that AUMF did not pre-empt the Posse Comitatus Act. Or the Constitution.
Who said anything about preemption?
"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
Of course, even that's assuming that the military forces are being used "to execute the laws," which we aren't talking about here.
What's the constitutional objection, by the way?
Discussion of the John Yoo prank cannot and should not be discussed without confronting the facts.
Let’s take a step back and underscore the reality: John Yoo was pivotal in sanctioning war crimes in violation of fundamental rights, both under domestic and international law. The fundamental right not to be tortured is non-negotiable. This is not a complex matter—it is a legally established standard that binds state actors. John Yoo gave legal advice that abrogates fundamental fairness that is essential to the very concept of justice. The substance of John Yoo’s legal opinions obliterates important human values where an agency of the government, in the course of declared war, consciously decides that it needs torture and surveillance to conduct its war of terror on the people of the world. Stephen Rhode and Lisa Hajjar have both spoken to this; this is also not a complicated matter.
How can other law students here seriously be arguing that because they subjectively disagree with the taste, creativity, and execution of this prank that they feel sorry for John Yoo? Who could possibly want to find common ground with John Yoo? Only those people who don’t understand what is yet afoot, are in denial, or who like John Yoo, want in on justifying the heinous polices of this system, a system which shamelessly invokes the word “justice,” yet in which fundamental justice will never be achieved. What kind of legal system is this that continues to defend John Yoo’s actions, so much so that even the current administration is fronting for this amounting legal fees?
John Yoo continues to influence the future of the legal system among the students in this classes. The moral relativism that Gina also pointed to needs to be challenged. John Yoo needs to be confronted. This is not an issue of academic freedom, this is an issue of justice for war crimes and the most heinous crimes against humanity that have been committed during our time. This is about confronting the reality of John Yoo’s actions, not the subjective opinion of how one feels about what John Yoo has done. The First Am. and AF do not protect state actors who decide that the laws are irrelevant when the executive yearns to take a certain course of action.
Inviting debate and inquiry on this matter should take place on campus and other students should be uniting around the notion of no common ground with war criminals.
Actually, 10:22, I do agree with you. I have wrongly allowed myself to be swayed by the harsh criticism that I and others who have challenged Yoo's continued presence at Boalt have received both in person and through various Yoo-related threads. But reading your post reminded me that acamedic freedom has its limits. A professor who had counseled his client to commit murder, and whose client had gone out and committed murder, would not remain in the University's employ. I think because torture remains largely hidden and does not affect most of the people who are privileged enough to attend this law school, it is easy to compartmentalize it. In this context, the issue of torture cannot be separated from the issue of ethnicity and alienage, and that makes it easy for people who, because of their ethnicity and where they were born, never have to fear government torture.
McWho stated "we never want to see someone we know humiliated." Frankly, you should speak for yourself. I don't particular care whether or not Yoo is or was humiliated. I would like to see justice served. To be frank, I am shocked that anyone could actually support his continued presence by taking his courses. To do so is to enable the injustice, as far as I am concerned.
"Inviting debate and inquiry on this matter should take place on campus and other students should be uniting around the notion of no common ground with war criminals."
That's funny, 10:22, because I think "debate and inquiry" appears to be the last thing that you are interested in. After all, it's all so clear to you, isn't it? The United States committing the most heinous crimes against humanity of our times. JY is an accomplice for that torture and a war criminal. JY's actions not only are indefensible, but they should not be defended in the legal system.
At least Gina admits that the issues are not so simple.
Carbolic -- if you are going to reference me please do so accurately. I said that the single issue of the professional ethics violation was not simple. The issue of whether Yoo has exceeded all bounds of human decency and morals is not such that he should not be in a position to influence young legal minds is not.
Sorry -- typo
Vigilantism of this kind is sickening. Vigilantes always justify their position by claiming that social institutions are not taking adequate action in the face of clear immoral or illegal behavior.
For example, in the abortion controversy, "pro-life" extremists adopt their tactics of intimidation and coercion based on the exact same moral philosophy espoused by so many in this thread.
You do not agree with John Yoo. I do not agree with John Yoo either. Protests, debates, and attempts to remove him through disbarment or criminal/civil proceedings are all ok. But when we start permitting others to take punitive measures, we cross the line between a civil society and one based on mob rule.
True, Yoo may have crossed the line first, but that is no reason to follow him.
to 10:47 - no, YOU "are not taking adequate action in the face of clear immoral or illegal behavior."
Sometimes my posts don't get a lot of comments, and it makes me :( . But I have now realized that the solution to this problem is to use the word "Yoo" at least once. It's a guaranteed 50 comments! Good job, America.
Let me ask you guys this, just for shitzies: does everything you say about Yoo apply equally to Cheney? Because my take on this has always been that, yeah I also hate what Yoo did, but the person behind all this is Cheney. Why does everyone waste time calling for Yoo's head when he's just a patsy?
Granted, many people think they should both be brough down, but my anger at Cheney just completely dwarfs any I feel toward Yoo, to the point that I basically don't even care about the torture memos. (Yeesh, responses to that line should be fun.)
Cheney lectures at colleges all the time. Hell, he did BYU's commencement two years ago (Cougars suck so much). Is it equally outrageous that colleges allow him to speak? Or somehow less so because he was elected?
I mean my hatred for the man is unquantifiable, but I would never question the decision of allowing him to speak on a campus if people want to listen. Do you disagree?
It's not really about whether it's Yoo or Cheney. Yoo is right here in front of us. He teaches at our school; he is employed by our school; he is paid by OUR tuition. I think that is what makes the difference for me personally. I see him in the halls, and even at the RSF, which is somehow even more disturbing (he is not in very good shape). But you are right, Cheney's actions are equally if not more reprehensible. However, we have a lot less influence over any decisions regarding him, and he doesn't touch our everyday lives, since he is neither in our vicinity nor being paid by our alma matter.
Gina, that's fine, but you didn't really answer my question. Are schools that pay Cheney to speak there equally guilty?
i think it's interesting/strange that a lot of people are calling it a prank--kudos for putting that word in quotes in this post--if it's a prank, it's shameful and stupid. if it's a protest, it's still obnoxious and inappropriate. but it's weirdly minimizing to call it a "prank."
"Why was Mohammad Jawad tortured? Why did military officials choose a teenage boy who had attempted suicide in his cell less than 5 months earlier to be the subject of this sadistic sleep deprivation experiment? Not that anything would justify such treatment, of course, but at least in the case of the other detainees known to have been subjected to sleep deprivation, they were believed to possess critical intelligence that might save American lives.
Unfortunately, we may never know. I’ve asked to speak to the guards who actually carried out the program, and I’ve been denied. In the absence of information to the contrary, which the government would surely provide if it existed, we are left to conclude that it was simply gratuitous cruelty.
The government admits that Mohammad Jawad was treated “improperly,” but offers no remedy. We won’t use any evidence derived from this maltreatment, they say, but they know that there was no evidence derived from it because the government didn’t even bother to interrogate him after they tortured him. Exclusion of non-existent evidence is not a remedy. Dismissal is a severe sanction, but it is the only sanction that might conceivably deter such conduct in the future.
February 7, 2002. America lost a little of its greatness that day. We lost our position as the world’s leading defender of human rights, as the champion of justice and fairness and the rule of law. But it is a testament to the continuing greatness of this nation, that I, a lowly Air Force Reserve Major, can stand here before you today, with the world watching, without fear of retribution, retaliation or reprisal, and speak truth to power. I can call a spade a spade, and I can call torture, torture.
Today, Your Honor, you have an opportunity to restore a bit of America’s lost luster, to bring back some small measure of the greatness that was lost on Feb 7, 2002, to set us back on a path that leads to an America which once again stands at the forefront of the community of nations in the arena of human rights. Sadly, this military commission has no power to do anything to the enablers of torture such as John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Robert Delahunty, Alberto Gonzales, Douglas Feith, David Addington, William Haynes, Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, for the jurisdiction of military commissions is strictly and carefully limited to foreign war criminals, not the home-grown variety.
All you can do is to try to send a message, a clear and unmistakable message that the U.S. really doesn’t torture, and when we do, we own up to it, and we try to make it right. I have provided you with legal authority for the proposition that you have the power to dismiss these charges. I can’t stand before you and say that you are legally required to do so. But I can say that that it is a moral imperative to do so, and I ask that you do so," - Major David J. R. Frakt, in his closing argument in favor of dismissal of the case against Mohammad Jawad.
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