In 1770 French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) wrote,
“On en trouve [l’argent] toujours quand il s’agit d’aller faire tuer des hommes sur la frontière: il n’y en a plus quand il faut les sauver.” (“Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so.”)
No truer words were ever spoken, and, unfortunately, what was true in 1770 is still true today. For eight years, our federal government borrowed money like a credit-card abuser and spent money like a drunken sailor (the latter simile attributable to Senator John McCain) to pay for a war in Iraq that nobody has yet figured out why we started in the first place.
Now we have a President who is trying to shift our priorities from “sending people to the frontiers” to “preserving them,” but THAT kind of spending is unacceptable to the thousands who gathered in “Tea Party” protests April 15th. We heard nary a peep out of those same protesters when Bush, et al. were running up the greatest budget deficit in our history because, presumably, the Tea Party people are infected with the same mindless jingoism that Voltaire condemned almost 240 years ago. Presumably they believe that spending to kill human beings is appropriate, but spending to help people to get back to work or provide them with affordable health care is not.
A few days ago I saw a bumper sticker on a pickup truck that read “I’ll keep my guns, freedom and money.” My guess is that the driver of that pickup truck believes that his freedom depends on his not paying taxes and using his gun to shoot anybody who tries to take his money and spend it on something “frivolous” like improving the human condition.
Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935) is supposed to have said, “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.” Justice Holmes was right. Paying taxes is patriotic, especially when those taxes are used for improving the quality of life instead of destroying life.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Torture
“The healthy man does not torture others--generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” - Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961).
President Obama’s release of the secret Bush Administration documents that contained the “justification” for torture techniques such as waterboarding has generated much debate. Former Vice President Dick Cheney argues that the “enhanced interrogation techniques” resulted in our obtaining valuable information. Here in West Virginia, MetroNews radio talk-show host “Hoppy” Kercheval has alleged that our junior U.S. Senator, Jay Rockefeller, knew about and approved of the torture because, at the time, he was the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Intelligence.
I have serious doubts that torture results in any useful information for its practitioners. Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican standard-bearer, has consistently maintained that what torture accomplishes is to cause the person being tortured to say what the torturer wants to hear, whether it is true or not. Senator McCain knows a little something about torture; certainly, he knows more than former Vice President Cheney, a draft-dodger who sought and received five deferments to avoid the Vietnam War.
But whether torture “works” or not is beside the point. The point is that, as Jung said, only sick people order, engage in or condone torture. (If Senator Rockefeller knew about and approved of the torture, then, in my eyes, he is as guilty as those who ordered and engaged in it.) Call me naïve if you will, but, as one who is proud to be an American, I think that we are better than that. Must we become like our enemies to defeat them? If we do, then what have we accomplished?
Now comes the disturbing news. The results of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center show that 49 percent of all Americans polled believe that torture can be justified at least sometimes. However, most disturbing of all is the breakdown of the survey relative to churchgoing frequency. Of those who attend religious services at least weekly, 54 percent believe that torture can be justified at least sometimes; of those who attend religious services monthly or a few times a year, 51 percent; of those who attend religious services seldom or never, 42 percent. What are those people learning at their religious services? Or--and this is even scarier--what are those people being TAUGHT at their religious services?
According to Yale University religious historian Sydney Ahlstrom (1919-1984), the early part of the 19th century was characterized by an individual approach to religion: “The quest for holiness, however, came to take a very individualistic line. The accent was on vices of persons, not evil in the forms of society. Reform meant change in the individual, not the tearing up or modification of a social contract that had been religiously approved.”
It is sad to say, but Ahlstrom could easily have been talking about 2009.
President Obama’s release of the secret Bush Administration documents that contained the “justification” for torture techniques such as waterboarding has generated much debate. Former Vice President Dick Cheney argues that the “enhanced interrogation techniques” resulted in our obtaining valuable information. Here in West Virginia, MetroNews radio talk-show host “Hoppy” Kercheval has alleged that our junior U.S. Senator, Jay Rockefeller, knew about and approved of the torture because, at the time, he was the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Intelligence.
I have serious doubts that torture results in any useful information for its practitioners. Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican standard-bearer, has consistently maintained that what torture accomplishes is to cause the person being tortured to say what the torturer wants to hear, whether it is true or not. Senator McCain knows a little something about torture; certainly, he knows more than former Vice President Cheney, a draft-dodger who sought and received five deferments to avoid the Vietnam War.
But whether torture “works” or not is beside the point. The point is that, as Jung said, only sick people order, engage in or condone torture. (If Senator Rockefeller knew about and approved of the torture, then, in my eyes, he is as guilty as those who ordered and engaged in it.) Call me naïve if you will, but, as one who is proud to be an American, I think that we are better than that. Must we become like our enemies to defeat them? If we do, then what have we accomplished?
Now comes the disturbing news. The results of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center show that 49 percent of all Americans polled believe that torture can be justified at least sometimes. However, most disturbing of all is the breakdown of the survey relative to churchgoing frequency. Of those who attend religious services at least weekly, 54 percent believe that torture can be justified at least sometimes; of those who attend religious services monthly or a few times a year, 51 percent; of those who attend religious services seldom or never, 42 percent. What are those people learning at their religious services? Or--and this is even scarier--what are those people being TAUGHT at their religious services?
According to Yale University religious historian Sydney Ahlstrom (1919-1984), the early part of the 19th century was characterized by an individual approach to religion: “The quest for holiness, however, came to take a very individualistic line. The accent was on vices of persons, not evil in the forms of society. Reform meant change in the individual, not the tearing up or modification of a social contract that had been religiously approved.”
It is sad to say, but Ahlstrom could easily have been talking about 2009.
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