Today: Senate votes on Gonzales's confirmation as AG
Yes, he'll be confirmed. I'm resigned to this. But here we go...
I have noble reasons for opposing the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the post of Attorney General -- reasons I share with and have been articulated by far better bloggers and columnists than I. So let me start by offering one the of the more petty reasons I personally oppose his nomination: The right-wing fucks on Powerline, the Corner, Little Green Footballs, Free Republic and elsewhere who argue for torture aren't so much concerned whether it works (it doesn't), whether it'll save lives (it wouldn't -- and even if it did, the lives it would most likely save wouldn't be ones they care about anyway, i.e. blue-state and foreign lives. Anyway, it wouldn't), or whether it's right or wrong. No. The people who want to have a civil, reasoned discussion about whether we should engage in torture or not when we shouldn't have one, want us to do this because they FUCKING GET OFF ON IT. It gives them major emotional wood just to envision some lantern-jawed, whitebread all-American Hero twisting the thumbscrews on and sticking the chemical lightsticks in some filthy raghead dune coon. And my morality and sense of justice and patriotism aside, anything we can do to keep protofascists from getting their jollies is all right by me.
Anyway...
I love my country. I love it because I clearly see that, for all its faults, it is more than a name, a song, a flag, and a spot on the map. It is even more than the gray solemn mists that drift among the ancient behemoths of Muir Woods at golden dawn, more than the the rough, muscled eddies that sweep down the grand, muddy Mississippi. It is the nearest this world has seen to the realization of the revolutionary Enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality and justice for all.
The only place torture has is in the thwarting of our perpetual quest to achieve those ideals. Those who argue for adding torture to our armory say it's necessary to fighting this war on terrorism. I submit that doing so, and deploying that odious tool, signals our defeat. We have lost, and whoever we claim to be fighting has won. Because at that point, we'll have nothing left worth defending. We're left defending nothing more than a magnetic flag and an old English drinking song with updated lyrics.
UPDATE: Now with more linkiness!
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Comments for Gonzales is teh l4m3!!!
Thanks, maurinskey! Just started this blogger thing, trying to figure out what I'm doing here. It's a work in progress. I'm aiming right now for 75% political, 10% random, 15% personal...
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lolz teh l4m3
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