One Single Tear

Megan McArdle, who has shown a, shall we say, cavalier attitude towards torture in the past, lets her heart bleed a little for Bradley Manning, who is being tortured by our and his government, using our tax dollars, because he was a whistleblower.

I understand that Bradley Manning has probably done something very wrong, for which, if guilty, he deserves a hefty jail sentence and the contempt of his fellow citizens. But this is not what a decent country does to its citizens.

The woman can blather on for pages and pages about banks CEO executive compensation but only manages to squeeze out two sentences of disapproval for Americans torturing Americans. Naturally she does not attempt to find out the circumstances of Manning's incarceration because that would entail reading liberal pundits and scholars. And of course, thinking is hard.

Meanwhile, most of her commenters and McArdle show absolutely no understanding of the need to protect whistleblowers, and show an alarming alacrity to believe anything they are told by an authority. But we already know that, don't we?

She's a journalist, by the way.

McArdle is able to simulate sympathy and horror because she is adept at adopting social cues but by her own admission she does not care enough to find out what happened. Most Americans will do the same thing and will tolerate almost anything that does not affect them personally. McArdle is part of a very large group.