Torture: a modest proposal  

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"A new phase in the evolution of liberal values is under way in the United States. America’s most celebrated defender of civil liberties has initiated a new debate on torture. The context of Professor Alan Dershowitz’s argument is American, but its meaning – like that of all true liberal principles – is universal. The force of his argument promises to transform liberal institutions throughout the world." -- "A Modest Proposal For Preventing Torturers in Liberal Democracies From Being Abused, and For Recognising their Benefit to the Public", John Gray, 2003


"It would be wrong to forget the needs of the interrogators themselves. In the past, torturers were shunned as outcasts – a tacit admission that they acted as the servants of tyrants. If we are to put interrogators to work in defence of liberal values, their role in the community must receive proper recognition. They will require intensive counselling to overcome the inevitable traumas that this difficult work involves. They must be enabled to see themselves as dedicated workers in the cause of progress. Psychotherapy must be available to help them avoid the negative self-image from which some torturers have suffered in the past. Unlike torturers who violated human rights at the behest of tyrants, interrogators who apply their skills to terrorists today are in the vanguard of human progress. In effect, they are practitioners of a new profession. Those who enter it must feel that society values them." -- "A Modest Proposal For Preventing Torturers in Liberal Democracies From Being Abused, and For Recognising their Benefit to the Public", John Gray, 2003

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"A Modest Proposal For Preventing Torturers in Liberal Democracies From Being Abused, and For Recognising their Benefit to the Public" (New Statesman, 17 February, 2003) is a satirical article on torture by John Gray.

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