Will Grigg's Liberty Minutes
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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

July 20, 2010

In her study of Nazi totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt pointed out that those who committed officially sanctioned atrocities were often hindered by their conscience.

To overcome that divinely instilled moral impulse, secret police chief Heinrich Himmler taught his subordinates to re-direct their pity toward themselves. Instead of saying “What horrible things I did to people!” they would say, “What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!" observed Arendt.

A similar theme could be heard in the recently publicized May 26 Senate committee testimony of Judge Jay Bybee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As a Bush administration official, Bybee signed off on memos ratifying the supposed presidential authority to order the torture of detainees.

Asked if he has any regrets, Judge Bybee lamented the professional and personal pressures he has experienced, and the “kind of attention [that] has been visited on me and … my family."

Judge Bybee has clearly mastered Himmler’s tactic of re-directed pity.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.