Bush wants to "re-define" the meaning of torture. I can't believe this is even a subject for discussion. He is proposing that the little moral high ground we have left in the world's eyes be further tarnished by what is clearly a move to cover his own ass. Once again, Bush serves as a reminder of how far we have fallen since he and his cabal of lying warmongering thieves stole the White House. He wants to legitimize torture and make us equals to the countries we have previously condemned for using torture. He wants to take us out of the elevated realm of civilized behavior and into the same world of the evil-doers he condemns.There are several things he has conveniently ignored in trying to backdate the law in order to prevent his third term being served out in a prison cell. The first one being that most our courts, the courts of law in the USA that are the envy of many in the world, would not allow confessions obtained by torture. As far better minds than Bush have determined, such evidence does not demonstrate truth but rather the desire for the person being tortured to make the torture stop.
Any of us, no matter what our political and religious beliefs, have a tolerance threshold for pain. Once we reach that level we will confess to anything, even things we could never do, no matter what the circumstances. That's why it is called torture, because it is something few human beings can endure for any period of time. And it is not valid in courts of law, which is why Bush has his secret installations to deal with that little technicality. It is why he avoids trying in a real court any of the thousands who are rotting away in illegal prisons without ever being brought to trial or charged with a crime that is related to terrorism.
Bush claims that we need to torture people in order to prevent terror attacks in the planning stages. So he rounds up everyone who looks Arabic or went anywhere near a Mosque or is of the Islamic faith, and sticks them in secret prisons where they are brutally tortured until they confess to something, anything that will then be put together and announced as a terror alert, preferably before major and minor elections.
Keep in mind this is the same man who holds the record for executions in Texas while Governor. With this record, his attempt to make torture legal, his assault on civil liberties, and his penchant for being the punisher-in-chief, he gives Torquemada and the Inquisition a run for their money.
Keep in mind this is the same man who holds the record for executions in Texas while Governor. With this record, his attempt to make torture legal, his assault on civil liberties, and his penchant for being the punisher-in-chief, he gives Torquemada and the Inquisition a run for their money.
The other thing he fails to understand is this puts our own troops in severe danger. He would understand this if he did not shirk his own military duty. He would understand this if he ever put his own ass in a position where it could be captured.
I have had many discussions with a former POW. He told me many times that his captors were very familiar with the limits of the Geneva Convention and followed those limits because they knew their own troops would be treated accordingly. Strange as it may seem to many, civilized countries, which is most of the world and not the one painted and portrayed by Bush as "all evil all the time," go by our guidelines on how to treat prisoners.
We are, or rather WERE, the model of decency throughout the civilized world. Having rules against torture, against secret courts and tribunals, being allowed to see the evidence of the crime we are accused of committing, those were the things that made us good in the rest of the world, the things that made us occupy a higher moral ground in their eyes. Bush is taking this and more away from us in order to cover his own crimes, to perpetuate his own mental illness and greed.
I have had many discussions with a former POW. He told me many times that his captors were very familiar with the limits of the Geneva Convention and followed those limits because they knew their own troops would be treated accordingly. Strange as it may seem to many, civilized countries, which is most of the world and not the one painted and portrayed by Bush as "all evil all the time," go by our guidelines on how to treat prisoners.
We are, or rather WERE, the model of decency throughout the civilized world. Having rules against torture, against secret courts and tribunals, being allowed to see the evidence of the crime we are accused of committing, those were the things that made us good in the rest of the world, the things that made us occupy a higher moral ground in their eyes. Bush is taking this and more away from us in order to cover his own crimes, to perpetuate his own mental illness and greed.
And to refute those who say well how are we going to stop another terror attack if we don't torture, I say to you there's nothing anyone can do about the murdering fanatics, anymore then there was anything we could do to prevent our own homegrown fanatic McVeigh from blowing up the federal building. We did not round up southern white men and torture them to find out where the next attack was going to be. We followed the rules of law, gave him a fair trial and then executed him according to those laws.
This is how morality works. This is how you can talk about morality to the rest of the world and not seem like a damn hypocrite. Obviously it is just one more thing Bush just does not get and we are the ones who end up having to pay for his ignorance.
Design from Ursine Logic Changing hearts and minds one t-shirt at a time.
This is how morality works. This is how you can talk about morality to the rest of the world and not seem like a damn hypocrite. Obviously it is just one more thing Bush just does not get and we are the ones who end up having to pay for his ignorance.
Design from Ursine Logic Changing hearts and minds one t-shirt at a time.
2 comments:
Hello Crazy Bear and all,
Why do religious leaders and followers so often participate in and support blatant evil?
The time is long past to stop focusing on symptoms and myriad details and finally seek lasting solutions. Until we address the core causes of the millennia of struggle and suffering that have bedeviled humanity, these repeating cycles of evil will never end.
History is replete with examples of religious leaders and followers advocating, supporting, and participating in blatant evil. Regardless of attempts to shift or deny blame, history clearly records the widespread crimes of Christianity. Whether we're talking about the abominations of the Inquisition, Crusades, the greed and genocide of colonizers, slavery in the Americas, or the Bush administration's recent deeds and results, Christianity has always spawned great evil. The deeds of many Muslims and the state of Israel are also prime examples.
The paradox of adherents who speak of peace and good deeds contrasted with leaders and willing cohorts knowingly using religion for evil keeps the cycle of violence spinning through time. Why does religion seem to represent good while always serving as a constant source of deception, conflict, and the chosen tool of great deceivers? The answer is simple. The combination of faith and religion is a strong delusion purposely designed to affect one's ability to reason clearly. Regardless of the current pope's duplicitous talk about reason, faith and religion are the opposite of truth, wisdom, and justice and completely incompatible with logic.
Religion, like politics and money, creates a spiritual, conceptual, and karmic endless loop. By their very nature, they always create opponents and losers which leads to a never ending cycle of losers striving to become winners again, ad infinitum. This purposeful logic trap always creates myriad sources of conflict and injustice, regardless of often-stated ideals, which are always diluted by ignorance and delusion. The only way to stop the cycle is to convert or kill off all opponents or to end the systems and concepts that drive it.
Think it through, would the Creator of all knowledge and wisdom insist that you remain ignorant by simply believing what you have been told by obviously duplicitous religious founders and leaders? Would a compassionate Creator want you to participate in a system that guarantees injustice and suffering to your fellow souls? Isn’t it far more likely that religion is a tool of greedy men seeking to profit from the ignorance of followers and the strife it constantly foments? When you mix religion with the equally destructive delusions of money and politics, injustice, chaos, and the profits they generate are guaranteed.
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Peace…
Thanks for the interesting comment. It brought out some things I've had in mind for some time, the primary one being that what people call Religion is not what those who dish it out call it. For them it is an agent of control, a means of controlling the sheep.
You see, in their master plan for the accumulation of wealth, goods, and especially property, there just can't be blatant, uncontrolled spirituality running amok. If people realized that all truth is found first and foremost inside themselves, then they would have no need to support the massive structures dedicated to controlling them. They would not sacrifice themselves to holy wars. They would not make the munitions manufacturers disgustingly wealthy by creating a demand for their wares of death.
And most frightening to those who depend on having a controlled populace to do its bidding, they would no longer respond to the fear of hell and eternal damnation. Bushco and other fanatics would have to rely solely on terror alerts to control the sheep.
The biggest mistake anyone can make is thinking that religion and spirituality are the same thing. Religion and belief in god or gods is not even the same thing. Belief is a personal, spiritual path. Religion is a means of control.
Without the awareness of this distinction, people might as well retire to a pasture and chew grass day in and day out until they are needed to serve as cannon fodder for the merchants of death.
Peace.
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