How is it the policy of the United States to torture people, when we ourselves would shutter at the very idea of such actions towards others? Does our own willingness to torture indicate that we as US citizens have now begun to put variant values on different people of different races and creeds? Does not Emma Lazarus best describe the mindset of this nation with her poem The New Colossus when she so poignantly stated, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door" Does this no longer apply. Did it ever?
How is it the policy of the US military to allow such treatment of others who, according to our own documents, hold natural rights which only God can remove; among those include "life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" Is it the official policy of the majority of Americas to be double faced. We smear at the idea of the Holocaust, and scream injustice of Saddam Housain, and yet WE HAVE GETMO!
How is it that Christians will sit back and allow, by our own inaction, such atrocities to take place, even if such actions do not meet our own definition of what torture is? 1 Peter versus 8-9 assert: "Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing." It matters not if we think a certain action is torture, rather, what matters is that we remain "of one mind" with the scriptures.
Torture is a violation of the sound doctrine to which this nation rests. I end with a thought from Thomas Jefferson who once said, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
No comments:
Post a Comment