Fear and Torture

I just watched the YouTube clip of Shep Smith of Fox News going ape-shit over the subject of torture. "We do not f*cking torture" he screamed.

Shep's kind of cute and if I were still drinking I might hit on him. But I'm not. However, I do agree with him. The United States does not f*cking torture.

Look, I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. I know the world is a nasty piece of business and we need to be on our guard all the time and sometimes we might have to resort to some pretty nasty tactics in order to preserve, protect and defend our national interests.

But we do not f*cking torture.

I cannot wrap my brain around the idea of us having a high-handed attitude of righteousness as we lovingly shove human rights and democracy down other people's throats (whether or not they want it) on the one hand, as we "faux drown" terrorists in extraterritorial hellholes created specifically for the purpose of being beyond our laws and Constitution, on the other.

We do not f*cking torture. If we do f*cking torture we can give up all pretense of being what we claim to be. If we do f*cking torture then we are no better than the zealous religious idiots who flew their planes into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and the fields of Pennsylvania.

We may have lost the most recent battles for our national soul, also known as "The Bush Years", but it is not too late to win the war for it.

We all know how far up the chain of command that nonsense went (all the way). We all know that Condi and Dick and Rummy and Georgie-Porgie signed off on it. We all know that for 8 years the White House suffered from a dual-diagnosis of stupidity and eagerness.

Prolonging our national nightmare by revisiting these matters in Congress, when there are far more important and loftier things we need to be doing, would be a further waste of our national wealth and psyche.

I think that it is time to move forward and upward, out of the muck and into the light.