The price of justice is too high

Justice Department investigators have concluded that three Bush admin. lawyers who provided legal cover for the use of torture should not face criminal charges (though they might face disbarment). It seems half of Americans approve of torture. That means, according to blogger Terence Heath, we don't want justice. We want change, but not that much. We've seen a glimpse of what real change would require and have decided the price is too high.

Another way to say it is that we would rather not know what injustices have been done. Because if we know we have to do something about it. We can't just cluck our tongues, we actually have to hold responsible people accountable. And that implies that we should have started holding those people accountable when they first started using torture (or at least when it first became public). We didn't. And we don't want to admit that we didn't, because if we make that admission it means we are also guilty of contributing to torture. Better to keep the blinders on.