John Nirenberg meets with Paul Taylor and Rep. Wexler

[fromVT]

http://www.marchinmyname.org/?p=310#comments

One of the most remarkable conversations I had today was with Paul Taylor, Chief of Staff and Counsel to the Judiciary Committee’s Sub-Committee on the Constitution. That means he is the ranking adviser to the Republican minority. I really wanted to understand their position and to hear from one of the most knowledgeable people connected to what would become a defense of the President and Vice President.

Let me tell you, I can see how once you begin to accept some forms of torture, applying exceptions to the rules with some categories of offenses, and using language such as “contextual” situation and “sliding scale” it isn’t hard to get on the slippery slope and accelerate your descent to the very bottom of human behavior - all in the name of national interest or security or necessity.

He was very polite. He spoke with me for over a half hour and told me how the Nuremberg Trials were not governing law and slid away from international agreements. What counts, he said are the Supreme Court decisions and so far they have articulated what he described as a sliding scale. Apparently torture is not only a matter of opinion but may even be appropriate under the “ticking bomb” scenario whereby an individual known to have information about an immanent disaster, can be treated as necessary to get the information to prevent it.

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Having said how the political climate must change for impeachment to be introduced, he sincerely encouraged me to “keep doing what you’re doing…It’s because of people like you that perceptions change and issues get moved forward.” Gee, that sounded vaguely like a compliment except it came from someone convinced my efforts wouldn’t really result in moving impeachment forward.

We completely disagreed but again, I felt heard. I appreciated his time explaining his rationale.

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Be sure to check out the photo of Wexler and Nirenberg near the bottom of the page (too large to display here):

From left: Sue Serpa with 13,000 Impeachment Petitions from Maine, Marilyn Buhlmann, Ralph Lopez, Congressman Wexler holding 177,000 signatures of his 188,000, John Nirenberg and Frank Enneking. Missing from the photo was Ethan Allen, our videographer.