American Values
During Donald Rumsfeld's hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee today, Senator John Warner said that abuse of Iraqi prisoners by Americans in uniform "contradicts all the values we Americans learn." It doesn't contradict the belief which gave rise to the deliberate, constitutional separation of powers in our government. That belief holds that any person or group must be expected to abuse power in the absence of some other person or group with a competing interest, wielding power equal to that which is to be restrained. Those in this president's administration, like Rumsfeld, who fought to prevent civilian review of military detentions and tribunals must have believed that at some point since the founding of the republic, we Americans have become so virtuous that abuse of power by Americans unrestrained by any countervailing power need no longer be considered a likelihood against which prudent planners ought to build barricades. That seems to be the main "value" we Americans have learned since the Civil War, and we need to unlearn it, and rediscover the realistic beliefs about the predictable unreasonable selfishness of all human beings which shaped our Constitution. Belief that "we" are more virtuous than "them" is not a peculiarly American value. It's as old, and universal, as the human race, and not the tiniest bit as profound as many genuinely foundational American values which even self-professed conservatives seem no longer to remember.