A Torture...Debate???

I'm trying to think of something that is much more frightening than the fact that there is actually a debate about torture. There is a debate about a procedure that is designed to be absolutely terrifying and whether it is torture and worthwhile. My mind gets stuck here, it circles and jerks and stops, I cannot fathom how this state has come into existence in my nation, in my home. I can understand liars and cheats getting elected and I can understand differences regarding economic policy and foreign policy but this is different.

My parent's generation fought and died in opposition to nations that practiced such techniques as a matter of course, and that was part of why they fought them - that they did so. Trials were held and people hung and imprisoned for such behavior. Thousands and thousands of our young men died so those trials could be held and we had the stature to hold those trials.

How can the death of a few thousand in America due to airplanes suddenly turn our world upside down? How does such behavior honor or show any recognition of their fates? Over two hundred years of our history are denied by even having a debate about this, much less actually practicing it. To physically torment someone into absolute terror is torture, there isn't even an actual question about that, no one would begin to talk about results if it were not so.

As more details leak out or are released I become sadder and more bewildered. It may be a function of age, but I find myself approaching tears. I do not understand the actions themselves and have even less understanding of those who support it being in positions of authority or responsibility. Karl Rove's words are meaningless, he's a hired hack for Fox News - nothing more - but Senators and Representatives hold positions of authority and responsibility and their behavior is incomprehensible. If it is about politics then things have patently gone much too far in that respect.

Torture is not ideological or political, it is the abuse of helpless human beings by those with the power of life and death over them and it is evil. Despite the rhetoric regarding the evils of socialism or theocracy the real meaning of that is regarding dangerous mistakes, not actual evil. The negation of the ethical values of an entire nation is something different entirely, it isn't about bad or dangerous policy it is about the soul of a people and it cannot be held as reasonable. There are those who do so and that passes reason, it becomes some primal fear driven limitless reaction - it is virtually the definition of cowardice.

I'll be blunt, it isn't an argument, it is the difference between mewling puking pussies and those with a shred of decency. It is either that or it is politics run amok, run into such a state that there are those whose pursuit of power leads them to propose that absolute evil is righteousness and supportable. You have to take a measure of such people and wonder how it is that society at large even tolerates their having an office of any sort. If you do that you begin to take a measure of an electorate that allows it and even encourages it and that is truly frightening. Your fellow citizens in certain areas are of such a mind set, think about that as you walk by them. That person you just passed would have such a thing done to you, in fact would do it to you and they not only walk about free, they elect such to national office.

In this setting we wonder about mass shootings or child killings and propose astonishment? Why? What is it we are earning?