When Torture becomes Normal
What happens when torture becomes such a normal part of how we manage people that we forget it hurts like a cow kick? I guess you should go and do some psychological study on Walter Schmidt, a recently fired jail guard from Florida. The nutter, while showing his colleagues children around on ‘Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day’, gave a couple of those children the old 50,000 volt behaviour modification.
So why do we look the other way when people use these devices on other human beings? OK someone will mention maniac drug addicts, or terrorists, or some other group of others that we don’t fit into. Because, let’s face it, we don’t want the torture to include us on the wrong end, right? Right.
The beauty of this article is that it illustrates the problem when torture becomes systemic in a society. A guard zaps children. Which is kind of funny, they were even prison guard’s children! Not even strangers.
I’m sorry but only a decade or so ago we shunned Indonesia for it’s purchase of a gazillion cattle prodders and denounced them as a torture state. Other people doing that was bad… but… then came a war on terror. Suddenly police, prison guards, and anyone with permission gets a 50,000 volt say yes machine. Then came the renditions. Then it stopped being called torture. Then we turned our backs while innocent people were renditioned. Then we started to think it was not only normal, but it was fun. Then prison guard Schmidt zaps children for fun.
Pay attention to that line of progression. One of my favourite sayings is – YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
