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But, it may be added, that, for some, the price is far higher than evil can ever pay.
Thus we sit here, in the cyber-hinterlands, and question the veracity of stories which ply us with tales of complicity on the part of those we have trusted with our representation in the vaunted halls of congress.
Should we question what we hear? Most certainly. All sources of information are suspect, especially when they reach us through the filter of the corporate media, the so-called "mainstream." What level of complicity should we lay on the heads of those who knew of flagrant violations of international (and those of the United States) laws regarding the treatment of prisoners. Of torture?
That those beholden to the Bush Administration and its reprehensible attacks on civil liberties and human rights should engage in such practices should come as no surprise. But should we also find that there is no "Mr. Smith" in Washington D.C., for whom these practices go beyond what he is able to tolerate? Should we also be surprised by this?
That there are these things that are classified "state secrets," and that divulging them is a violation of the law, even if these "state secrets" are, in and of themselves, concerned with the hiding of other violations of the law, should also come as no surprise. This is the way the business of this administration has been conducted. Behind closed doors and under the cover of national security.
Is the torture of prisoners a matter of national security? Only in that it may lower the moral authority of the nation, a moral authority that the behavior of the administration and the former Republican Congress already jeopardized beyond repair. So we must ask ourselves, whose security indeed is this classification meant to protect?
So the question is now put to us. Should we continue to trust the word of those who we elect to represent us who, in fact turned away from these awful truths and accepted that this information was somehow bound up in our continued security, or should we raise a hue and cry to bring these people to question ON OUR HONOR?
"The United States does not torture."
But it does. And attempts to hide it from the people through intimidation cloaked in the rule of law.
Should these representatives have come forward with the information, perhaps in time to prevent us from even attacking Iraq, or maybe, at the very least, to help fight the crooked electioneering of the last Presidential election? Even at the cost of personal and political risk? To do the right thing despite the danger?
I can only speak from the position of a lowly onlooker, a writer of fantastic tales, and a person with no political fortunes to jeopardize. But right is right, and wrong is wrong, and Mr. Smith is gone from Washington. There are too few in positions of power now willing to jeopardize their fortunes and futures to stand up for "truth, justice, and the American Way."
Too many of our representatives appear either to be cowering in fear, or silently complicit with the perpetration of evil done in our names. Laws that are meant to disguise evil, or paint it in garish, eye-catching beauty that hides its true foulness, are not to be obeyed, but questioned, rent apart, or shattered so their sharp spines are shown to all for what they are.
But there are too few with the moral courage and fortitude to do this, so these crimes, and so many others, lay hidden behind polite fictions held nearly sacrosanct.
Of course, I have no political fortunes to protect, no status beyond that of a common citizen, so it may be that I cannot truly grasp the magnitude of what I suggest.
On the other hand, maybe I simply have too high a price for evil to afford.
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