Just keep walking

The most spectacularly stupid thing I’ve heard this month, if not year, goes to Peggy Noonan:

Her quote in the discussion about whether or not to investigate war crimes:

“Sometimes in life you want to just keep walking, Sometimes, I think, just keep walking…. Some of life just has to be mysterious.”

She’s certainly not the only person to express this, but the way she expressed it is exceptionally mindless. I’m at a loss for words to express the magnitude of this.

Obama had a similar outlook. NYT:

Mr. Obama condemned what he called a “dark and painful chapter in our history” and said that the interrogation techniques would never be used again. But he also repeated his opposition to a lengthy inquiry into the program, saying that “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

In fact, “laying blame for the past” is the point of the Judicial system, which is one of the branches of government, as you may have heard. Our laws and treaties are meaningless unless we enforce them. We live in a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, but suddenly we think that war crimes are not worthy investigation? Seriously?

Also, shouldn’t the torture defenders be advocating our withdrawal from the UN Convention on Torture? If we aren’t going to adhere to it, why bother? How can we expect other countries to follow a standard we don’t?

We’re still prosecuting Nazi war criminals, FWIW.

I’m much more certain about this issue than I used to be. We’re a country of laws, not a country of men. And for you tea-partiers: unchecked executive power is a lot closer to tyranny than Clinton-level tax rates.