Whose fault is it?

Via this post by Dale Franks at QandO, comes the link to this missive in the Washington Post (at the time of writing, their server appears to be down). It's a predictible opinion piece on the recently revealed abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison. Dale does an incredible job of taking this guy apart. Here are a few choice selections:

An important measure of a society's values is what it condemns, both socially through ostracism or shame for minor offenses against its values, and legally by criminal prosecution for more serious offenses. Arab Muslim countries routinely use torture and abuse as a matter of policy. In the United States, we prosecute and jail abusive police officers and prison guards at the state level. Additionally, we expose them to federal civil rights prosecutions for the same acts. Then, of course, they are liable to civil action for damages from those they harmed.

To me, it seems the fact that we criminalize such behavior, condemn it, and prosecute it means that the abhorrence of abuse is one of our central cultural values. Mr. Kennicot seems to believe otherwise.

...

Ah. I see. So, we bear a collective responsibility. Funny, that's the same arguments the Russians made at Nuremberg. All Germans are guilty, collectively. Therefore they should all be punished. By that reasoning, we are all guilty in some way of murder, bank robbery, arson, muggings, and various and sundry other crimes, because, every day, someone commits those crimes in America.

This is one of the great lies of the Left, that society is sick and twisted, and that the evil that men do is a result of the corrupting influence of society, not because people are equally capable of good and evil, and are personally responsible for the choices they make. The poor, for example, commit crimes because they are poor, and victims of society's injustices.

Although, one notes, the Left doesn't similarly argue that possessing wealth makes one more spiritually noble. Odd, that. If lack of money makes one prone to criminality, why doesn't the abundance of money make one virtuous? But, I digress.

The key argument is that we are, at the same time, collectively responsible for everything that any one of us does, but individually responsible for none of them. It's the corrupting influence of society that makes us do it.

This was stupidity on toast when Rousseau came up with the idea 200 years ago, and it hasn't gotten any less stupid in the two centuries since.

Read the whole post, it's a thing of beauty.

The Left can be partially characterized by two beliefs. The first is that we should strive for equality of results (i.e. every student gets an 'A') rather than equality of opportunity (i.e. every student is given the chance to earn an 'A' if they apply themselves). The second is the concept of collective responsibility rather than that of the individual. Membership in a group is considered the primary factor in a person's identity and is responsible for their behavior. As Dale says in his post, the belief is that "The poor, for example, commit crimes because they are poor, and victims of society's injustices."

I don't discount the effect that environment and experiences have on people's decision-making processes. However, they are still individual actors. They make the choices, the choices are not made for them. They weigh the pros and cons of their possible courses of action, and then choose what course to take. Then they must accept the consequences of those actions, at least in a sane society.

Regarding the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, the events were despicable. Those responsible should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, I refuse to bear the blame for what happened there because, quite simply, it's not my fault. Just like I refuse to bear the blame for slavery, or the actions of serial killers.

And let us keep things in perspective. Regardless of how contemptible the actions of a few soldiers are, they pale before the atrocities committed in that prison before the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Where was the outrage then? As Dale states, "when 'we' do it, it's a crime. When 'they' do it, it's policy."

In the same vein, Mike at Cold Fury comments on an article he ran across. An excerpt:

But the most telling thing that guarantees the remembrance of the despicable Abu Ghraib events – events that are nothing like as execrable and endemic as the news of Islamist monstrousness we hear on any given day of the week – is not the concern for basic decency and human rights that most soldiers share with all of us, but the fact that you and other “patriotic” libs like yourself will take this as confirmation of something you knew all along, and will remind us all of incessantly and forever: that all soldiers at bottom are somehow twisted people who serve not out of a sense of patriotic duty, but out of a deep and perennial sadism and a desire to violently lord it over others, inborn emotions and desires that can be occasionally glossed over but never really removed from inherently unevolved people.

Your problem is not with the individuals who committed these awful acts; your problem is not even with the acts themselves. No, it goes quite a bit deeper than that. Your problem, and that of many others on the Left, is with the very existence of soldiers, and armies, and warfare, and nation-states acting in their own self-interest.

It's the same disdain for the military expressed in the Ted Rall cartoon that led to this post I wrote the other day.