Selective outrage

Posts written mainly to vent one’s emotions rarely enjoy warm reception from other people, so self-help books advise to send such posts directly to the Recycle Bin. But this deprives the post of desired effect; so I prefer to publish such texts, and come what may.
I have just read a third – yes, third – post here at the WIP site bashing the torture used by US at Guantanamo. I do not intend to cite the three authors, for I strongly suspect it could be almost anybody. Yes, torture is a bad thing, but I admit that the concern whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed & Co. have been tortured isn’t anywhere among my top 70,000 priorities. My God, I wish to have some people’s problems!
If it were a human rights site, then well, it should defend the rights of anybody who nominally belongs to the human species. But why at WIP? The torture victims in question share an ideology including, among other things, a cart blanche for married men to beat their wives, criminalization of female sexuality, depriving divorced mothers of parental rights and blaming rape on victims. So I find proponents of this ideology the finest collection of misogynists currently alive on Earth. Why don’t we women leave their advocacy to someone else?
Here, I expect readers to challenge me to state my attitude to torture without any ifs, buts ans waffle talk. In reply, I would ask them to do the same first. Dear opponents, are you really against torture from purely moral and principle viewpoint? Or do you care only when suspected Islamists are tortured by people working for the US government?
Since Bulgaria became EU member in early 2007, it has become impossible to attract outside attention to violations of human and civil rights in this country. In January, two pretrial detainees died at the hands of police within a week, and nobody gave a damn. Apparently people think that EU membership magically guarantees human rights, so torture in an EU member country, even when lethal, should be considered nonexistant for any practical purpose.
Well, forget Bulgaria. How much do you care about torture in other countries such as China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Russia, Tunisia or Zimbabwe, to name just a few? Here my opponents, if they are honest, should say that they are mainly interested in torture done by Americans. Well, be as you like. What about the Judge Rotenberg Center, “a school for special needs students that operates in Canton, Massachusetts… charging $220,000 a year for each student… (which) administers 2-second electric skin shocks to residents using a Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED), which was invented to administer the skin-shocks by remote control through electrodes worn against the skin” (quote from Wikipedia)? Where is the public outcry demanding this hellhole to be closed? Or perhaps disabled children aren’t human enough and torturing them is OK?
One of the reason to reject inhumane treatment is that, if violation of human rights is once allowed for somebody we find exceptionally disgusting, it could then relatively easily be extended to other people. However, defending the human rights of bad people doesn’t always have the effect of raising the general standard. The reason is that media time and public attention are limited resources. Allocating them to a specific problem means removing them for other problems. Now, all media and public attention that could be devoted to the torture subject is occupied by the Guantanamo detainees. Respectively, all other victims remain in the dark for indefinite time. So, Pres. Obama, please pardon all people tortured at Guantanamo, release them and give them fine compensations. Hopefully then somebody could find a minute to think of the Judge Rotenberg Center.