Thank you for taking the time to reply. I agree that Bush has twice gotten into the White House. In the first case, with less than a majority of the voters voting for him.
But to your main point about Americans looking at themselves. I don't think Americans see themselves as torturers. It is decidedly un-American. We can get into who voted for what, when, and how and try to paint all with the same brush. We can say that every American is "guilty," but having said that, what have we really accomplished besides venting anger?
I disagree that ignorance has led to the Administration's decision to use torture as part of national policy. I say it is fear, coupled with a failure to appreciate American principles. One of the principles is that we take the high road rather than the ends justify the means.
The current Administration wants vengeance. They want a counter-jihad, and while certainly the United States is justified in stopping attacks against its people, wanting to punish perpetrators seems to have blinded all to more pragmatic issues.
There used to be a saying Americans had ... actually Americans used to have lots of saying that are now considered out of fashion. One of those saying was that "it is better for a 100 guilty men to go free than to condemn an innocent man." I use the 1961 film, "Judgment at Nuremberg" as a touchstone,
Ernst Janning: Judge Haywood... the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people... I never knew it would come to that. You *must* believe it, *You must* believe it!
Judge Dan Haywood: Herr Janning, it "came to that" the *first time* you sentenced a man to death you *knew* to be innocent.
It is the fact that corruption begins in small ways and while it might feel good to place the sins of the fathers unto the children, Americans have been fed a diet of "let's get the bastards." It's a low key lynch mob mentality that is more focused on revenge rather than the ends. The means are incidental.
What is the end in this case? Hanging jihadists? Trying them in courts where they are not granted full rights. We might say terrorists don't deserve full rights, but doesn't that say we've already convicted them in our minds and that these are kangaroo courts?
Would we torture an innocent man? No. He's presumed innocent.
Part of the punishment is the torture itself, because these individuals are "guilty," don't cha know. This is what is behind our slipping into darkness.
Healing must come. We must get over our own rage. We must heal the nation's spirit. It was Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address who said of our people, something we have forgotten about what needs to happen. Not vengeance, but grieving and healing and calling upon the best within ourselves which is what Americanism is all about. Lincoln says,
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Bush is no Lincoln. And alas, he has led us into the heart of darkness.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I agree that Bush has twice gotten into the White House. In the first case, with less than a majority of the voters voting for him.
But to your main point about Americans looking at themselves. I don't think Americans see themselves as torturers. It is decidedly un-American. We can get into who voted for what, when, and how and try to paint all with the same brush. We can say that every American is "guilty," but having said that, what have we really accomplished besides venting anger?
I disagree that ignorance has led to the Administration's decision to use torture as part of national policy. I say it is fear, coupled with a failure to appreciate American principles. One of the principles is that we take the high road rather than the ends justify the means.
The current Administration wants vengeance. They want a counter-jihad, and while certainly the United States is justified in stopping attacks against its people, wanting to punish perpetrators seems to have blinded all to more pragmatic issues.
There used to be a saying Americans had ... actually Americans used to have lots of saying that are now considered out of fashion. One of those saying was that "it is better for a 100 guilty men to go free than to condemn an innocent man." I use the 1961 film, "Judgment at Nuremberg" as a touchstone,
It is the fact that corruption begins in small ways and while it might feel good to place the sins of the fathers unto the children, Americans have been fed a diet of "let's get the bastards." It's a low key lynch mob mentality that is more focused on revenge rather than the ends. The means are incidental.
What is the end in this case? Hanging jihadists? Trying them in courts where they are not granted full rights. We might say terrorists don't deserve full rights, but doesn't that say we've already convicted them in our minds and that these are kangaroo courts?
Would we torture an innocent man? No. He's presumed innocent.
Part of the punishment is the torture itself, because these individuals are "guilty," don't cha know. This is what is behind our slipping into darkness.
Healing must come. We must get over our own rage. We must heal the nation's spirit. It was Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address who said of our people, something we have forgotten about what needs to happen. Not vengeance, but grieving and healing and calling upon the best within ourselves which is what Americanism is all about. Lincoln says,
Bush is no Lincoln. And alas, he has led us into the heart of darkness.