November 5th, 2005

I don’t even know how to say it anymore. I wish I could come up with yet another eloquent or at least impassioned plea to my government to stop debasing us with human rights atrocities. I don’t know what’s worse now, that we’re probably doing unspeakable things to people we cannot prove in a court are guilty of any crimes so we hide them in secret prisons, or that this action is defended and called just by citizens of what we once referred to with some authority and dignity as the world’s greatest democracy. Sure, I’ve no evidence that the CIA isn’t handing out balloons and cupcakes at these secret installations, but I can’t imagine why they’d need a special exemption to the torture bill for such bonhomie.

To see further examples of Americans defending the CIA ‘black sites’ and endorsing the torture that likely occurs therein, try the comments on this entry by Real Live Preacher, primarily the ones made by Little Green Friend, RickinVa and the ever popular Anonymous User. I bet these people would not even consider themselves moral relativists. And yet, wishy washy peace-loving me can put my foot down and say torture is wrong under any circumstances whatever. Evil wrong. Not negotiable, and not a single circumstance under which my government can or should do it.

I’m just about ready to scratch this whole country and start over again fresh. Can I get a mulligan? Seriously, I don’t need the country of my adult life to turn into the country of my childhood.

And it’s interesting, isn’t it, how quick all the Eastern European nations were to say “I’m not hosting this party“? It’s looking like maybe Poland, and looking like the EU isn’t happy about that.

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