Meet Me At Camera Three

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Cartoonists Against Crime Day
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Retrocession Day (Taiwan)

 

I signed another petition yesterday that said, in essence, that George W. Bush is like Darth Vader, only without the redeeming qualities.*

 

While he didn’t mean it about the Military Commisions Act, I think Lewis Black summed up the way our rights are progressing perfectly well when he screamed “We’re going fucking backwards!” I am of the opinion that anyone with any sense could see why this bill is Bad, but it was signed anyway, indicating that either I am wrong or that fewer people than I thought have sense. So, please, allow me to explain what ‘sinking to their level’ means.

 

Here’s the reason that removing suspected terrists’ right to habeas corpus and giving our military the legal right to torture them to protect our country is a Bad Thing: it makes us the bad guys.

 

Now, this does not mean that The Terrists become the good guys. The Terrists are psychotic whack jobs. But what Our Fearless Leaders aren’t asking is why we consider them to be psychotic whack jobs. Where is the line between them and us? What makes us fundamentally different from Those Crazy Bastards?

 

Simple. We say they are crazy bastards because they don’t respect basic, common human decency.  They do bad things to people. They torture and rape and maim and humiliate and kill.  My god, man! They’re evil because they do such horrible things without remorse!

 

We say we are the good guys because we don’t do horrible things like that. We must protect ourselves from people like that, because people like that are bad, and we are better than them.

 

So what does that make us when we do shit that we say they are bad for?

 

It makes us bad guys.

 

And then we can’t justify saying that we’re better than them, because we aren’t.

 

That’s why the Military Commissions Act is a Bad Thing.

 

 

*Since you asked, the voice of James Earl Jones, the final redemption, and intrinsic cool badassery that puts the super in supervillain.

Comments

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Thank you.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

A-fucking-men.

The problem is that "basic human decency" doesn't really mean anything to the assholes in power anymore. It's more like they've become convinced their Higher Moral Purpose is better than The Enemy's Higher Moral Purpose and that justifies doing anything they want for it. Even if it's been proven that doing anything they want doesn't help in any way, you know, because come on, it's what they want to do anyway, isn't it?

Not that I can't admit that sometimes when regular means fail extraordinary means have to be employed in their stead. Given how well the voting machines and democratic process have been doing, who do I have to bribe, assassinate or sleep with to get those creeps out of power anyway?