We're talking morality
But that's what I've been trying to tell you. I'm not talking morality. I'm pointing out the similarities, not equating both ideas.
It's you who cling to this morality issue and thus rise in a rightous rage, because you think that somebody insulted you by calling your country immoral.
I'm not in a righteous rage. Far from it. I'm on a personal quest to correct every single misconception on the internet.
Mine is a long and difficult journey...
But seriously, I'm not defending the U.S. government as an apologist. I'm defending the U.S. government as someone who likes for intellectual discussion to be honest, because that's how we learn the most from it. I think labeling Gitmo an "Inquisition" is dishonest and deprives us of the perspective that comes from honest debate. But maybe I'm wrong, if I am, then learning I am gives me a new insight into geopolitics. While I was disrespectful before, that was because you seemed more interested in sabotaging real debate rather then having a legitimate difference of opinion.
Anywho, I think I understand your argument pretty well, up to one wrinkle. You are comparing the inquisition and Gitmo detention. You note, correctly, that they are alike in that the government has pre-emptively associated it's prisoners with a negative label. In both cases, the label helps the government act against this group of people. I'm with you this far and agree.
However, it appears to me that our views sharply diverge past this point. You state that the morality of the action plays no part in naming it (and imply it plays no part in comparing it to other actions.) I disagree with this view. The morality of some actions is intrinsic to a definition (such as with murder and self defense), thus comparing the actions without regard to the morality implicit in the definitions, is only a partial comparison. I think that using a partial comparison in this way (Inquisition to Gitmo), presents a greatly distorted picture.
If we ignore morality, any incarceration can be called an inquisition. Look at criminal justice (when the system works.) First, people are given a label "criminal." In this context, criminal is meant to mean "those who hurt others." This label is used as an excuse by the government to inflict suffering upon these people, fining them, compelling them to abandon the behavior, imprisoning them or even excecuting them. But even extremely liberal people would not object to the principle of incarceration or say all incarceration is by definition is an inquisition. While many people object that incarceration affects many people it should not (just like in Gitmo), they would not contest the fact that some people being incarcerated are done so legitimately. They might suggest alternatives courses or demand a due process even for the obviously guilty. They might object to how often the label "criminal" is misapplied, in the courts or in the laws. But people don't consider the correct application of criminal justice to be illegitimate or to be an Inquisition.
Inquisition (persecuting people for a belief) can never be legitimate. Even if we do legitimately persecute them because that belief harms others (hate crimes for example), we are not persecuting them for holding that belief, but for the harm. Any persecution that is persecuting the belief alone is an inquisition and is, by definition, illegitimate.
Detention of terrorists is clearly not an illegitimate action by definition. Some of the men at Gitmo are very dangerous and very guilty and should not be released. Many of them are not guilty or dangerous and have been wrongfully imprisoned due to an over-eagerness to imprison. However the administration did not apply the label "terrorist" because they wanted to imprison the not guilty among them. They decided that the label "terrorist" applied FIRST and that these men were dangerous, and based on that decision, they should be imprisoned.
To summerize,
Inquisition: illegitimate by definition because it's based off of what people believe, a fundemental human right.
Gitmo: not illegitimate by definition because it's with an intent to prevent harm.
You might say that morality plays no part in the definition, but when people think of an Inquisition, they think of persecuting a belief, not persecuting malicious action. If you want to show that Gitmo is an Inquisition, I believe you need to show that the "terrorism" of the Gitmo detainees is a belief, not a malicious action. But the differences between these are very, very based around morality, as I have repeatedly tried to argue. Therefore, I don't see how you can possibly argue that morality is irrelevent to this difference.
If we completely ignore the moral aspect, inquisition becomes meaningless. Let's say I ask my friend to wait five minutes for me. Ooh! That's an inquisition. I'm detaining him by forcing him to wait and I'm doing it because of who he is, my friend. Morality is key to what inquisition is.
Edit: Goddamn it, I did it again. Ever since I got on this medication, I keep absurdly over thinking things and not realizing how long it's taking. It wasn't until I hit post that I was like "dear god, that's long!"
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Topic: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned... (Read 16254 times)