Nearly Half In U.S. Ready To Discard Law And Morality

We now know the results of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the use of torture by this country -- and it's worse than we expected. The United States not only used torture, the use of torture was more widespread and involved more vicious techniques than was thought. And it is obvious now that the American people were lied to by their government.

But perhaps the most important thing that the report revealed was that all that torture did no good at all. It produced no actionable intelligence, and in fact, probably impeded the war on terror by using inaccurate information (and outright lies) gotten through the use of torture. Knowing this, and understanding that decent people find torture morally repugnant, and that every civilized nation (including us) has made the use of torture illegal, it would make sense for the public to be outraged.

But that is not the case. In fact, as the chart above shows, nearly half (47%) of Americans support the use of torture -- while only 33% opposes it (and another 20% isn't sure whether they support it or not). Those numbers are shocking to me. How can half the population of a nation that holds itself out as a beacon of democracy and justice, be so willing to toss morality and law out the window (especially in light of the fact that torture doesn't even work)?

Has this nation lost its way? Has our bloodlust and desire for revenge at any cost overcome our common sense and moral center? Do we even deserve the respect of the rest of the world anymore?

The chart above was made from a recent Rasmussen Poll -- done on December 9th and 10th of a random national sample of 1,000 likely voters, with a 3 point margin of error.