Across the Line
John McCain seems like a decent guy. Served in Vietnam, probably would have prefered a vacation to some tropical paradise rather than a forced one in the Hanoi Hilton, and brought home an illegitimate child from the far east. Hadn't heard that one? Well that came from the Karl Rove playbook in the 2000 campaign. Anyway, he thought it would be nice if the rules that we agreed to follow under the Geneva Convention and are spelled out in the Army Field Manual were actually the law, specifically, torture is not allowed. It is an idea I agree with wholeheartedly. It passed 90-9.
There are two problems here, well actually, more like nine, plus a few waiting in the wings. Here are the first nine.
Wayne Allard (R-CO) a veterinarian. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-MO) a professional politician starting in 1970. Tom Coburn (R-OK) a physician. Thad Cochran (R-MS) by trade a lawyer. John Cornyn (R-TX) wasn't really sure what the hell he wanted to be when he grew up and ended up in the US Senate (hey, you read his website and figure it out). James Inhofe (R-OK) in politics for the past 40 years. Pat Roberts (R-KS) politician, father was head of the RNC in the 50's. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) went into office two years out of college. Last, Ted Stevens (R-AK) has worked in Washington DC pretty much his entire life (and says he'll quit if they take away his bridges to nowhere to help people left homeless by Katrina).
Now I can't speak as to the religious views of all of these people, and if any of them is Jewish, well who am I kidding, this is a bunch of guys who put themselves forward as good, "family values" type Christians. I want to know where Jesus says to torture people. I know there is a whole lot of torture in the Bible, that's not what I'm asking. I want to see Jesus say, "Yep, torture is cool by me." It seems to me that first, the guy who says, "turn the other cheek," probably isn't going to say it's okay to stand a guy naked in the middle of a room with a black bag over his head. And second, I'm going to have to say, he never said anything of the sort. If he did, his being tortured on the cross would be ironic, not tragic.
What I see when I look at this list is people who hold to their religious beliefs when it means to hell with the fags, screw science, and sex ed, contraception and abortion in any form is all the work of Satan, but hey, if it means kicking the shit out of the "enemy du jour" then who cares what God thinks. My opinion of these individuals, to borrow a line from Dick Cheney, is "Go fuck yourself."
By strange coincidence, that brings us to Cheney himself, problem one waiting in the wings, who is trying to kill this in a House-Senate conference committee. Yep, Dick's down with torture too. That's a quality position, dick.
And lest we forget, George W. Bush has said he'd veto it, and is problem two waiting for this. Well he hasn't vetoed anything else, so I'd guess he's lying, not as though that's a new state of affairs, but let's just say he actually did veto this. I guess W's down with torture too.
Torture is so antithetical to America that we spelled it out over two hundred years ago, "nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." I think this is the very definition of torture. But that's ok, we can give up everything it means to be American, this is war after all, and all's fair in love and war, right?
No. To borrow a line from Patrick Stewart, "Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"
Ignore everything else that has happened in the past five years. Ignore the lies told to get us into a war in Iraq. Ignore the insult to education that they would like to throw into our classrooms. Ignore the incompetence of groups like FEMA. Ignore the politicization of the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, and Homeland Security. This is something that no one can even consider ignoring. This one action carves at the very heart of everything this country stands for from any perspective. It is un-American, it is un-Christian
There are two problems here, well actually, more like nine, plus a few waiting in the wings. Here are the first nine.
Wayne Allard (R-CO) a veterinarian. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-MO) a professional politician starting in 1970. Tom Coburn (R-OK) a physician. Thad Cochran (R-MS) by trade a lawyer. John Cornyn (R-TX) wasn't really sure what the hell he wanted to be when he grew up and ended up in the US Senate (hey, you read his website and figure it out). James Inhofe (R-OK) in politics for the past 40 years. Pat Roberts (R-KS) politician, father was head of the RNC in the 50's. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) went into office two years out of college. Last, Ted Stevens (R-AK) has worked in Washington DC pretty much his entire life (and says he'll quit if they take away his bridges to nowhere to help people left homeless by Katrina).
Now I can't speak as to the religious views of all of these people, and if any of them is Jewish, well who am I kidding, this is a bunch of guys who put themselves forward as good, "family values" type Christians. I want to know where Jesus says to torture people. I know there is a whole lot of torture in the Bible, that's not what I'm asking. I want to see Jesus say, "Yep, torture is cool by me." It seems to me that first, the guy who says, "turn the other cheek," probably isn't going to say it's okay to stand a guy naked in the middle of a room with a black bag over his head. And second, I'm going to have to say, he never said anything of the sort. If he did, his being tortured on the cross would be ironic, not tragic.
What I see when I look at this list is people who hold to their religious beliefs when it means to hell with the fags, screw science, and sex ed, contraception and abortion in any form is all the work of Satan, but hey, if it means kicking the shit out of the "enemy du jour" then who cares what God thinks. My opinion of these individuals, to borrow a line from Dick Cheney, is "Go fuck yourself."
By strange coincidence, that brings us to Cheney himself, problem one waiting in the wings, who is trying to kill this in a House-Senate conference committee. Yep, Dick's down with torture too. That's a quality position, dick.
And lest we forget, George W. Bush has said he'd veto it, and is problem two waiting for this. Well he hasn't vetoed anything else, so I'd guess he's lying, not as though that's a new state of affairs, but let's just say he actually did veto this. I guess W's down with torture too.
Torture is so antithetical to America that we spelled it out over two hundred years ago, "nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." I think this is the very definition of torture. But that's ok, we can give up everything it means to be American, this is war after all, and all's fair in love and war, right?
No. To borrow a line from Patrick Stewart, "Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"
Ignore everything else that has happened in the past five years. Ignore the lies told to get us into a war in Iraq. Ignore the insult to education that they would like to throw into our classrooms. Ignore the incompetence of groups like FEMA. Ignore the politicization of the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, and Homeland Security. This is something that no one can even consider ignoring. This one action carves at the very heart of everything this country stands for from any perspective. It is un-American, it is un-Christian
posted by Mike N | 10:52 PM
1 Comments:
People don't give a flying you-know-what about this. They absolutely don't. They don't think they have to be "American" or "Christian" or "Ethical" in a circumstance like this. It's pretty amazing.
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