A Rare Opportunity

In one of the opening episodes of this season's 24 the protagonist, Jack Bauer, sits in senate committee hearings to determine if his actions of torture should bring him prison time. Later in the episode when someone laments how he is being treated his response is that the American People have to decide what they want to have done to keep them safe. It is a telling moment, but not only for 24 and its on-going penchant for torture to get information, but for us. Many questions are being raised about war crimes as they relate to prisoner interrogation during the Bush administration. Wherever one stands on this issue it seems that this may be a rare opportunity for us (U.S. Citizens) to do some deep thinking and moral reflection on just what we are willing to do in times of fear and worry. What lines are we willing to cross, believing that in crossing them we will keep ourselves safe?
Scott Horton in Harpers raises the question about a judge who approved the "torture" techniques used in the past few years. He writes, "Jay Bybee is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which sits in San Francisco. He is also a suspected war criminal and the author, together with John Yoo, of the most infamous legal memorandum in U.S. history, the torture memo of August 1, 2002. How can a man who might be a war criminal sit on one of the nation’s most important courts?"
Such questions and moments as these really do give us a rare opportunity for public discourse on important moral issues. The question is, "Will we take the opporunity or will we just switch on 24, suspend our judgment and watch Jack do his thing?"
Two last questions--where is the place where civil and informed dialogue on such matters can take place? Can the church be such a place? If so, how? And, are we willing to study, reflect, and think enough to actually take part in such a dialogue--not simply spewing what we already think we know or grabbing only what we think from our present political side of the street?