Batman Tortures His Enemies Too

I saw this little bit about the A.G. confirmation hearings...

Mukasey Won't Say Waterboarding Torture

My Synopsis: After WWII the U.S. convicted a Japanese officers of warcrimes for waterboarding, but Bush's pick for A.G. can't figure out if waterboarding is torture.

It got me thinking...

I'm going to go out on a ethical limb here and say that even "good" people reach breaking points in their lives and act rashly, harsh and do downright evil things. Under duress, I believe that a good person can and will resort to horrible acts in the heat of the moment. A parent may do violence to another to save their child. A military commander may sacrifice a life to save many. These are horrible choices of the human condition.

I mentioned in a recent post that a lot of life-lessons can be found in the pages of comic books. One of my favorite comic-book heroes is Batman. Batman often resorted to mental and physical punishment to gather information from the bad-guys. Almost always there was a ticking clock involving a kidnapped child or a bomb. Hey, Batman is a superhero! He wouldn't do something bad, right? Wrong.

The iconic "Dark Knight" balances precariously on that thin gray line called morality. I believe that the character I grew up reading would justify his actions, but also call them what they are. Batman wouldn't sugar-coat things or spin them. Batman would call waterboarding torture. Batman would say that it's an uncivilized and reprehensible act. He would do it anyway. Batman's ethics are regularly challenged by his peers. Superman regularly challenged his decisions, to which Batman would respond by calling Superman a "Boy Scout." Thankfully, their moral debates were pure fiction and the resolution of the events had no bearing on real lives. This is not the case with the current quests about torture "We the People" struggle with today. Real lives are damaged by our decisions.

Somehow, I almost prefer Batman's world to Bush's. My problem is that the two are becoming a bit too similar. Batman makes no excuses for his actions, neither does Bush. Batman tortures his enemies to protect the people of Gotham. Bush "protects" us. Batman is a vigilantly who convinced the law to turn a blind-eye to his actions. Gasp, so is the President!

At least Batman doesn't raid Arkham Asylum for his political appointees. That's it! Edward "E" Nigma for A.G. & Harvey Dent for the Supreme Court!