CIA torcher comment by me

[Penn]

I dont apologize for being an American. The cia torture report is out- and people are tripping over themself to apologize for being American. Well every week sharia nuts decapitate someones head. 3000 people perished on 9-11, from every country. We went into Iraq to protect the US petro dollar. Every currency on the planet is backed by our dollar. So when you flip a switch and get heat or power- a soldier protected a pipeline to make that happen for you. Are you willing to live with out power and heat? The wars are about the petro dollar. A few people are tortured and oodles of Americans are swooning to sell us out. If you use electric or heat- you are complicit in the petro dollar. You are part of this process. Saying your sorry in its ultimate form will mean intermittent and unreliable energy. I am not willing to live with those limitations. Every time you flip a switch- you are part of the system. YOU.

 

[ancona]

Irrespective of nationality, torture is a reprehensible act that should never be tolerated. As stated by every expert, it seldom produces positive results and goes against the very grain of this republic and every single Christian value I hold dear.

 

[pmbug]

We should not become that which we despise.

 

[dontdeBasemebro]

What worries me about torture more than anything else is that if it is in use, who gets to decide when it is appropriate and for what reasons becomes the issue. I don't have any sympathies for terrorists, but I can't say that I have enough confidence in the .gov to determine who is and who isn't. Unfortunately, I think at this time our government is nearly openly hostile to large groups of perfectly law abiding citizens.

It is certainly reasonable to deny the government any power that it can't be trusted to use appropriately. Granted, that really means no government is appropriate. As much as I agree with proper libertarianism (property rights and non-aggression) as an ideal, I don't think it is feasable on the lagre scale due to man's habit to use aggression as a means to an ends. The 6000 years of recorded history support this, and frankly, I think it would require a change to the nature of man to achieve anything else.

Penn, you make a very good point that all of us, and most of the civilized world, ride the petro-dollar's back and are therefore complicit in it. It is very similar to the Europeans who derride the US's militarism while being directly protected by it for some 70 years now. I can't count how many times on certain types of message boards people cheer the fall of the petro-dollar, seemingly unaware that when that happens their purchasing power will vanish along with everyone else's. "Bring it all down, man" isn't so cool when it leaves you eating cardboard for dinner.

From the earliest Summarians to the US today the world has been run by empires, and empires gonna imperialize.

The problem today is that while the world still operates on the imperial model, the notion of it has become unacceptable. Therefore, we play this charade of "spreading democracy" and "upholding human rights" to keep ourselves from uttering the dreaded "E" word. We are an empire that tries to not operate like one, all the while operating like one. It is no wonder that the nature of world events are so different in reality from what we are told they should be. Once you admit the world is still run by empires that try to aquire wealth/power in by controlling resources and trade (sometimes militarily), reality starts making a lot more sense, even if it leaves us uneasy.

 

[Penn]

Bravo dont debase.

I certainly can see more then one side of the issue. Lately tho- it seems that too many are apologising for being American. I see it- on the issue of gun control, mike brown, and now this.