Hanged for a Lamb; Hanged for a Sheep

Wizbang! dives in headfirst on something that - at least hypothetically - had briefly crossed my mind yesterday in light of the Durbin flap:

I'm not going to bother arguing with the "close the Guantanamo death camp" morons. Instead, I have another idea. There's an old aphorism that says "as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb." Since we're already being punished for "torturing" these detainees, why don't we go ahead and do it already?

Who hasn't been in the position - usually but not always as a child - of being framed or wrongly accused with such force that one wishes one had had the benefit of committing and possibly enjoying the fruits of the crime for which one knows one is going to be punished?

When the verdict is "guilty! guilty! guilty!", as it is in totalitarian regimes, the result is a lack of respect for the law. Fear maybe, but a complete lack of respect, accompanied by a deeply justified feeling that one might as well try to get away with whatever one can. No, I'm not talking about Gitmo detainees being falsely accused. I'm talking about Durbin's patently false accusations against the U.S. military. Ironic, isn't it?

I'm not sure anyone has noted how in that sense, over-the-top rhetoric by figures in power like Dick Durbin is deeply corrosive to the rule of law and respect for civil institutions. These guys are scary enough out of power. Imagine having their no-holds-barred, intellectually bereft 'logic' actually applied to the governance of our nation. Scary.