Ranting - Now more than ever!

Mr. Cheney desires that the CIA be allowed to torture prisoners. And many believe that our troops should also have that option (good heavens! We've become the Russians!).


This despite our own publicly stated opposition to mistreatment of prisoners elsewhere, and several conventions to which we are signatory.
And despite torture being singularly unreliable as a means of interrogation, or the reports of our torture of prisoners being (perhaps more than anything else) a reason for many people in the rest of the world to hate our guts, despise our hypocrisy, and distrust our officials.


Last year, in response to an accusatory, xenophobic, rambling redneck e-mail from a friend and former co-worker (whom I shall refer to as 'Dude' in the rest of this post) who could not see anything wrong with abusing prisoners, especially if they were Muslims and foreigners, I wrote the following:


Dude,


The ends DO NOT justify the means.

Additionally, those methods have been shown repeatedly to be ineffective, and to yield unreliable information.

Further, our people who do such things in the end will end up so thoroughly twisted that neither you nor I will want them walking around on our streets.

Police force for the world? Get off your high horse. A police force run by a bunch of Southern Sheriff wannabes sure ain't the best we can do, and makes us as Americans less welcome and less safe wheresoever we go outside of our own country. And why do WE need to be the police force? Are we pretending the world is better than it actually is?

Trust me on this: the world does NOT want us to be a policeman. They've seen how we go about it.


And stop saying that because the rest of the world, in the estimation of you and every other po' iggerent Mercan, is despicable, it is okay for us to be a bunch of bastards too, as long as we're not as bad as some of the others. You know that that is an unethical load of horse pucky, and utterly false besides.

Because 'they' kill people, it is okay for us to torture?
Because 'they' use brutality, it is okay for us to beat the crap out of prisoners?
Because 'they' rape and slaughter, it is okay if our boys get out of hand?

Dude, civilized folks judge themselves by civilized standards, NOT by the excesses of others.
And bear in mind that most of the folks who are temporarily in our custody are there because the grunts on the street in Baghdad or Ramadi do not understand them, and do not have the time to find out who they are and why they're there. Just yank 'em in, and find out later.




Greatest country on earth?

Perhaps, dude, but that sure as hell does not justify us NOT being better than we are. And it sure doesn't justify us not even trying to match our own inflated saintly self image. We can do better (well, those of us in the civilized states. The rest of you might very well be absolutely unredeemable).

[Minor faults? Any country which includes Texas and Baptists has major faults. And we've also got Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice. ]

I sure as hell would not want any boys from the red states over here in California acting like they're the boss, because, like football players and southern sheriffs, they're dumb, arrogant, potentially violent, and occasional rapists, drunks, and thieves.

You really think the rest of the world wants them either?

What has the rest of the world done to you that you would do that to them?


Heck, all those trans-Sierran carpetbaggers who've come to California in the last two generations have spoiled it for those of us who have a valid right to be here. Buncha bloody opportunists! And now we're sending their inbred cousins to places in the rest of the world where we're meddling, to represent us, with not even enough oversight to keep 'em from making asses out of themselves?

Yeah, that is really gonna make people like us!



And further to your ten commandments remark, G_d is very wrong in public, primarily because most of the believers in this country are ignorant heretics and idolaters who besmirch faith with their fundamentalist rantings and false interpretations. You all do not believe in the same G_d, and your theology is a travesty and a misunderstanding.

Some of you heathen even believe in three deities as one, and the intercession of the dead or the non-existent, and the infallibility of a senile old git at the head of the most child-molesting organization of the world - an organization which is responsible for more religious violence than all the other so-called Christian groups combined.

And further, anybody who believes in creationism is a moron. Even hearing such a person utter the word G_d is pollution, how much more so pretending that they and I have anything at all in common as far as religion is concerned.



The only part of America that may qualify as 'greatest country on earth' is the part that voted blue.

The rest of the country is inbred Jed. Despicable, inbred, ignorant, illiterate, Bible-thumping, bigoted, self-righteous Jed.

Screw 'em.

- - - - - - - - - - -

As I said, that was written last year. I still hold the same opinions. Now more than ever.

The original recipient of this e-mail (the gentleman referred to as 'Dude') reacted by writing that I have a "prejudiced racist mindset", and indicated that he no longer wished to continue our correspondence.

While I cannot understand why he calls me a racist (Southern inbreds qualify as a separate race?!?), I respect his wishes, and will not write to him again.


[The ignorance, illogic, and spelling errors were starting to get on my nerves. Which is the same reason I avoid communicating with most supporters of the regime.]