I'm a vet, you see, so forgive me for getting excited about this. We veterans of the all-volunteer military only signed up to get a paycheck and some help with college, and by and large we're a fairly faint-hearted group. So thanks, thereisnospoon, for that
slap in the face. I really needed it.
I think what got me in such a tizzy is that currently we have soldiers in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I was unduly concerned that this legislation might have an impact on their safety. Not directly, of course, since they will continue to serve under the same bat-shit-crazy Commander in Chief and the same clinically sociopathic Secretary of Defense. But indirectly, I was thinking this might cause problems for the troops.
We don't live in a vacuum, you see. The world is watching us, and they judge all of us by what the see (I know, I'm overly self-conscious about that, but I'm working on it!). And although Democrats in congress have been functionally absent since Bush took office, I always had the feeling that the rest of the world knew that Bush was pretty screwed up, but in general Americans were O.K.
What got me all aflutter about this torture vote was thinking that the world would get the impression that all Americans believed, like Bush, that torture was O.K. Since, in fact, our congressmen and senators, those representatives of, for, and by the people, voted to condone torture and throw the Geneva Conventions out the window.
And if that's what the world thinks, then it's likely to come back to haunt us when any of our troops are captured.
I mean it would haunt us if we failed to remain calm.
But thanks to your wake-up slap in the face, I'm calm now. I now realize that eventually this issue will wind its way through the court system, and our beloved, magical, fix-any-difficulty, totally-immune-to-the-threat-of-fascism CONSTITUTION will prevail. Even if the supreme court is packed with right wing extremists. (why I had to take an oath to protect and defend the constitution I'll never know; it can obviously take care of itself). And two or three years from now, when all the world's newspapers have huge headlines reading
U.S. SUPREME COURT RULES PEOPLE'S DESIRE FOR TORTURE UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
all the countries around the world will breathe a collective sigh of relief and apologize for misjudging us. (And also apologize for torturing
our troops, of course, but that's just a minor detail.)
If, in the meantime, any of our active duty military are, ummm, shall we say inconvenienced by this little misunderstanding, it's important to think in abstract terms about how our government works, and not sweat the details.
You know, chill.