TORTURE

I got out of bed to pee the other night but a pinched nerve in my back stopped me in my tracks. Peg found me in the dining room, lying naked on the cold, hardwood floor, unable to move. After a few quick jokes about weight gain she brought me a pad, a pillow and a blanket, and there I lay for the rest of the night. An hour later, still unable to move, I remembered I had to pee. Paralyzed with pain and my bladder bursting, I had some quiet time to think about torture and the American way of life.

It is inconceivable to me that we are even discussing the possibility of torture in America. America, for God’s sake! I know it’s a tough world out there, but you’re either the good guys or the bad guys, and good guys do not use torture. Period! And calling it “enhanced interrogation techniques” makes you a torturer and a liar (and an idiot, since no one believes you anyway).

Some people are so angry at these boogeymen that they are willing to sacrifice their sense of morals in order to regain a feeling of safety. First of all, though I am sure there are people out there who wish us ill, I don’t believe for a second that there are terrorists hiding under every bush, which is exactly what Mr. Bush would have you believe. It is the classic first step in the dictator’s playbook: create a universal enemy. Make it so scary and ubiquitous that reasonable people will voluntarily give up their civil rights in exchange for protection. But you can take the shoes off every passenger on every flight in America and some crazy jagoff will go shoot up a mall in Omaha. There is no protection from life.

Second of all, I don’t think torture is intended for terrorists. If it were, they would be more secretive about it. But since they are discussing it so openly, many people suspect (and I agree) that the torture is intended for us. People are much easier to control when they realize that something painful and frightening awaits them if they dare to step out of line.

America is a free country. The down side of living in a free country is that people are free to do evil things. No amount of torture them or restriction of freedom will change that. The way to stop terrorism is to remove our occupying forces from foreign countries, stop trying to dominate the world, and act like civil human beings. This is not appeasement - this is common sense.

a foot on either side