Every once in a while, you run into an incident in your life where the moral course of action is indistinguishable from the alternatives.  In these situations, the line between what is right and wrong, good and bad, is blurred to the point where no matter which path you choose, you feel great apprehension.  I recently started working at Legal Affairs, an organization that defends students against charges levied by the university.  This operates in addition to the legal consequences that they suffer in the criminal justice system outside of the university.  I had the opportunity to work a rape case, something that is always controversial, and I was tasked with defending the student charged with the crime. In order to defend someone who is accused of these things, you have to set yourself in a certain frame of mind.  You need to make sure you NEVER make a judgement about your “client’s” guilt or innocence.  It’s a really difficult line to walk.  I had to question his accuser, a girl who almost broke into tears during my interrogation, and I had blur details about the night in order to impress upon the hearing board panel that the case was simply his word against hers.  At the same time, through all the hours I spent with my client, I came to the conclusion that he was a genuinely nice guy, and had we met under different circumstances we would most certainly be friends.  He was even able to provide a common friend of the two who was able to back up his end of the story.  We won the trial, as there was no evidence to suggest that he had committed the act other than the girl’s testimony.

As you can see, sometimes things aren’t cut and dry.  Sometimes you have a situation where choosing a path or a side is going to hurt someone no matter which is picked.   Sometimes you have a situation where there is no way to know who is telling the truth.  It’s times like these that in the end, you are still going to look back and wonder if you chose correctly.  In order to stay sane, you need to push it out of your mind and move on.  Just remember that the world truly is shades of gray.

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Throughout my high school years, I was forced to read many different works of literature that our English teachers deemed to be classics.  While I have been an avid reader all my life, I’ll admit that I probably spent more time on sparknotes.com than I did reading the books that were assigned.  One of the few books I did take an interest in was 1984 by George Orwell.  My initial interest stemmed from the wonderful experience I enjoyed while reading Animal Farm, but I soon found myself immersed in the novel at hand.  While I can’t identify exactly what it was that kept my eyes glued to the pages, I have a hunch that it was the slight feeling of dread that I think everyone experiences when they read the book.  You start off fascinated by the world the fabricated world that Orwell has created, and you think to yourself that this is so far fetched that it could never conceivably happen to our world.  As you progress through the book, your mind begins to wander.  You start thinking of certain similarities between that totalitarian world and your own.  By the end of the book, you have this strange little anxiety that maybe this crazy society could really happen, given the right circumstances. 

The funny thing is, while we are steadfast in our belief that big brother will never be watching us, we forget that in parts of the world people are not afforded the same liberties that we are.  We have access to (relatively) unbiased, uncensored news.  We are able to express our opinions of desent without the government knocking on our door and threatening our well being.  We have a complete set of rights that are protected by a system that really is the best in the world.  To us, that Orwellian world seems impossible to comprehend.  In many countries around the world, things can be much like the events in the book.  Recently in Saudi Arabia, a blogger was investigated and imprisoned because of his dissenting view of the royal family’s politics.  The blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, was asked to sign an apology for his criticism.  This really hit home with me because I have written countless pieces criticizing the Bush administration.  What if I had been living in a country like Saudi Arabia?  I have always believed that change can only come about through criticism and response to criticism.  In these countries where the right to express opinions is not present, change cannot occur.  While that is obviously the goal of these regimes, it is not what is best for the people of that nation, nor the world as a whole.  In countries like Turkmenistan, dictators control the internet, television, and phone lines.  There is no escaping the all encompassing grip of the government. 

Perhaps before we rule out the possibility of Owell’s society coming to fruition, we should take a look at the state of the world in which we live in.  While it may not be a part of our lives as Americans, there are six billion other people on this planet, some of which live in societies that come much closer to those in the book.  While we don’t know what the future has in store, the best way to prevent it from happening to us is to be aware that the priciples of a totalitarian society are very much in place elsewhere in the world.

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Torture.  The word alone has an immediate negative connotation.  If you haven’t been living in a cave for the past month or two, chances are you have heard of the drama unfolding around the Bush administration’s policies on torture.  In case you aren’t aware of all this, it is now a fact that the CIA used such torture techniques as waterboarding and various other methods in an effort to extract information from captured militant.  The CIA then proceeded to destroy evidence of this practice and try desperately to save face.  To many, the issue of torture is simple.  NEVER.  Many Americans would say that we are too civilized a nation to condone such a barbaric act as that of torture.  While I would agree that torture is barbaric and that we should not make it a practice, I believe that he issue is much more complex. 

I tend to think that there is a time and a place for torture.  Why do I believe this?  Because in my mind, the pain and suffering of one person, and one with evil intentions at that, is insignificant in comparison to the pain and suffering of many.  I believe in the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  Now, before all of you out there condemn me and call me pro-torture (because we have to give a label to everyone in the American political realm), keep in mind that the only time I believe that torture should ever be employed is if it can save countless lives.  For instance, if a terrorist possesses information of an imminent attack on a major city.  All of you out there saying that torture should never be used, let’s pretend that the target city is YOUR city.  Suddenly, torture doesn’t sound like a bad idea right?  As long as it’s your life that is being saved, it’s alright. 

Don’t think that I don’t see the perils of authorized torture.  If you apply it to one situation, it is bound to become applied to another.  And another.  And another.  It will become more liberally applied to scenarios as time wears on, and that is scary.  Just as we can see the deterioration of rights under the Patriot Act, we can also see the deterioration of the most sacred human rights under a system that allows torture, even in select scenarios.  I also see the chance for mistakes.  Innocent men being tortured for information they do not even possess.  The only counterpoint to the fear created by these potential pitfalls is the notion that the rights of many are tantamount to the rights of one. 

When most of us think of torture, we think of iron maidens, the removal of finger and toe nails, or the stretching of limbs.  What we don’t realize is that these are all medieval torture techniques aimed at causing massive amounts of pain.  What is used now is a combination of light physical duress and heavily mental “torture”.  I found this list of approvd CIA torture techniques at ABCNews.com:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

As you can see, they aren’t ripping out limbs or bringing these people near depth.  The worst of the techniques above appears to be the cold cell, in which a stubborn prisoner probably could lapse into hypothermia.  The waterboarding technique that is so widely talked about in the news, seems like it creates no danger or torture to the prisoner at all.  It makes them feel as if they are suffocating or about to die, but this a purely mental feeling experience of fear.  They think they are drowning, but they are in no danger.  Honestly, I don’t even know if that fits my definition of torture.  Scaring a terrorist like this seems no more threatening then pointing a gun at them and telling them you are going to kill them. 

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Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you.  Things you are passionate about one day have a strange habit of taking the back seat for other activities that come your way.  Basically, that is what has become of this blog.  While I often visit this page, I can never seem to find the time or desire to update it.  I know I have posted a few other notes about restarting the College Critic, but when tomorrow rolled around, I just couldn’t find the patience to spare the few minutes it takes write something thoughtful.  This morning, I was routinely checking my email when I happened upon a letter from a reader.  Now, this email took me by surprise, as I didn’t think I even HAD readers even when I was writing in full swing.  Anyway, the email was only two or three lines long, but full of encouraging words.  Finally, this person asked me why I had stopped updating the site.  When I started to think about that question, I began to think that maybe the limited time in my day was not the real reason I had been avoiding my blog.  After all, you make time for things you care about.  Perhaps I was disillusioned by the desire for an audience.  I think that somewhere along the line, I stopped caring about my intellectual analyzation of different topics, and placed more emphasis on what would create readership.  That was a mistake that I hope I can learn from.

Where is this post leading?  I didn’t really know when I started writing, to be honest.   I was trying to make a decision about whether to start writing again by getting all of my thoughts on paper (or the computer screen I suppose).  After thinking things through, I am ready to give this blog a try again.  I won’t make any promises that this desire and initiative will last, and I don’t expect that anybody would believe me if I did.  After all the prior posts, you can take my decision with a grain of salt.  Despite all of that, I’m going to give this comeback my best shot.  The College Critic is open for business once more. 

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I came across an interesting article today in the Times.  I tend to gravitate more towards legal articles because, as of now, that seems to be the avenue I am going down career-wise.  The article used the scenario of a young man named Ryan Holley to expose a serious flaw in the justice system.  According to the article, Holley lent his car to a friend one night.  That friend then proceeded to use the car to drive 3 men to the home of a drug dealer with the intention of stealing from his safe.  During the burglary, they killed the man’s 18 year old daughter.  Holley was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for simply lending his car to his friend. 

Now, I have always been a proponent of only sentencing people for crimes that they directly committed.  I feel that if two people are robbing a bank and one shoots a guard, only the man that actually pulled the trigger should be charged for the murder.  Obviously, I don’t support the sentence that Ryan Holley was given at all.  Even if we assume that he did know of his friends intentions before he handed over the keys to his car (the police never established if he did or didn’t), Holley should not have been charged with first degree murder.  He was not physically part of any robbery, and he performed no actions during the robbery.  The scariest thing about this case is the fact that the jury actually convicted after the prosecutor made this ridiculous statement; ““No car, no crime. No car, no consequences. No car, no murder.”

It seems that we need to be much more careful with who we lend our things to in the future, since it appears that if we lend a tool to our neighbor and they commit a crime with it, we will be charged with the exact same crime.

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It’s late.  Almost 4am to be exact.  I’ve been sitting in bed trying to focus on tomorrow’s accounting exam for hours, but I can’t seem to find the right mindset to study a subject that I find to be completely commonsense.  I began to look through my favorites, and on a whim I decided to come back and look at this site I created about a year ago.  I read through the articles that I had devoted so much time and thought into.  I was brought back to the days when I would sit down between classes with a pad of sticky notes and a copy of the New York Times and just reflect on every article, always looking for something worth writing about for my daily blog entry.  It was so exciting to me.  I had this notion that I was spreading knowledge and and opening up minds.  I geared my content towards the reader, hoping to provoke debate or sway people one way or another.  When the readers never came, it seemed as though the time wasn’t worth it.  As I sit here now, reading through all of my writing, I realize that maybe it was worth it.  Through all of that self-inflection, I gained so much more insight into the world around me.  While I was trying to create thought provoking questions for others, I was really forcing myself to think.  It is for this reason that I have decided to restart the College Critic.  This time around I’m going to do things a little bit differently.  Traffic isn’t important to me anymore.  While I still would love to have some readers, the most important thing is that I am happy with my writing.  I learned a lesson when I launched the Swing Voter a few months back.  I was longing for readership so I decided to write a political article. I chose to write about how I admired Mike Gravel for running despite the odds that he faced, but mentioned that I wouldn’t vote for him.  I submitted the article to Digg and Reddit, and within hours the article was at the top of the front page on both sites.  I had almost 10,000 hits in the first day.  You would think that I would be happy with that kind of turnout, and I was - until I saw the feedback.  People decided to leave comments on my site and on reddit that made me feel as if my opinions weren’t worth sharing.  I realized that for the first time, maybe traffic is not a blessing.  I have always considered myself to be thick skinned, but for some reason, that incident brought me crashing down to earth.  I haven’t written since that article. 

Here I am.  I look back at that and I learn from it.  I know that the reason I was so affected by that reaction was because I had my hopes so set on finding people who agreed with me and would praise me.  So now I adapt.  I don’t care if people disagree with me because I write for myself - noone else.  If you don’t like something, tell me, but back it up.  If any of my old readers are still around, I want you to know that even during my absence, I still kept tabs on your blogs.

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I finally got my new blog up and running!  It’s called the Swing Voter and I will doing all of my writing on there from now on.  It is a dedicated moderate/independent blog serving up politics, news, and opinion.  So far I have only had time to transfer some of my favorite articles from here over to there.  I still need to get the layout fine tuned and create a logo for the top, but overall the site is now functional!  Take a look.

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