And while it was certainly most entertaining, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the Senate Republicans are trying to terrorize the American people, and that this makes them, quite literally, terrorists.
Of course this is nothing new on their part. But previously there's always been at least some element of plausible deniability involved. They could point to some sort of policy argument, no matter how lame. Now, that's gone. With the absurdity of the premise totally exposed, this is nothing left but the naked attempt to terrorize America.
That's what the GOP has finally become: America's largest terrorist organization.
Article 1 of the International Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment provides, in simple terms, that "torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession...." The Convention reaffirms the basic principle that intentionally inflicted suffering destroys the dignity of victim, the torturer, and the society that allows it.
Article 2 of the Convention provides that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture," and that "an order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture." In other words, "no torture" means no torture. Ever.
Having just spent five days in the disaster that is Florida real estate, it makes me wonder: Is it possible that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were the root cause of declining home values? Is it possible that subprime loans and speculative building/buying were no more than tools, the equivalent of hijacked airliners?
If so, the eventual economic cost of those attacks may run in the trillions of dollars. It may also help us find the unity to gird our country against the biggest threat since World War II.
Hmmmm. Who gets the political advantage from this story?
h/t Cunning Realist, who writes, "Get back to me when we find minutes of Federal Reserve meetings and manuals on adjustable-rate mortgages buried in a Tora Bora cave."
