Torture by Anonymous

The magic, mission and myth of torture…. “For all their talk of fire and brimstone, the Christians vision of Hades was a pale reflection of the Muslim hell.  Those who reject Allah were burned alive throughout eternity, their skin instantly replaced so they could be incinerated again and again.

If the Christian hell offered full-measures of pain, their heaven offered equally celebrated joys-an afterlife of wings and clouds and harps.  Muslims expected the full measure of ecstasy in Paradise, virgin lovers and perfect mates, the joys of the flesh in rapturous and infinite varieties, a suitable reward for devotion in this life” …and we tremble at “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

“Torture” has a justified twin.  Humanities existence is riddle with events that fit the worst definition of “torture’ that one can possibly exhume.  If this is manipulated for political and not moral advantage, the commerce in this philosophy is counterfeit.  “It is all definition and intent.”

“Torture” is often the “excuse” for those unwilling to do the “moral heavy lifting.”  God bless the “tortured” conscience of Adolf Hitler, whatever it was that drove him to suicide.  Had we not been confounded by “enhanced interrogation techniques”, we might have saved millions….an option never to be tested and proven?

Every single “tortured” victim of the “Total Solution”, Stephen William Hawkins’s “blessed (sic)” with “torturous” Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, every Medal of Valor recipient who conquered the “torture” of personal self doubt conflict between heroism over cowardice, Abraham Lincoln, Nathan Hale, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr….., the Battles of Lexington and Concord the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War…. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his “Concord Hymn”, described the first shot fired by the Patriots at the North Bridge as the “shot heard “round the world”. Those who live with MSA, if one cares to visit “MSA Decisions: A Visit To Mom”, “My Visit With Mom”, “One More Fourth of July”, “MSA and the Cleveland Clinic”, “A Prayer For Frank Cervone”, the victims of genocide, plague and famine, one can find a “meaning” for “torture” in all this any outcome of “goodness!” Start with “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

Dale Carnegie

There is certain twisted and tortured understanding of Dale Breckenridge Carnegie’s great achievements, attributed by many to his twisted and tortured concept, his “tortured” revulsion of being “poor”.

Psychological “torture”, carrot and stick, and a more current slicing and dicing of that marvelous liberal, Steve Jobs, would allow one to contemplate the wisdom, meaning, and motivation of “good” resulting from the “torturous” psychology of “rejection”.  One can ponder the devastating “torture” of “adoption”, the ultimate human “torture”, being given up by those who “love” you.

This is the true meaning of “torture”, the embrace of our own pain, punishment or sacrifice, with resentment or acceptance.  Is this concept to be abandoned; in search of what, a world where the value, empathy, focus and impute, merit, of pain and suffering has no value?  We are such cowards when it comes to meaningful pain and sacrifice.  If it “hurts” reject it. “There is no greater love than this.  There is no greater gift that can ever be given.  To be willing to die, so another might live – there is no greater lover than this.”

When punishment does not enable rehabilitation, recidivism is almost a truism.  Good judgment comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Torture is an acceptable “given” when beyond our control, but it is a test of true character when, on occasion, we must make the “free will” choices, and have the courage to embrace the “greater good” decisions.  Not that easy!!!

The Black Robed Regiment… of the Revolutionary Period were men of God who spoke out concerning the issues of the day.  The name was given to a name of pastors, especially in colonial America that were very instrumental in America winning their independence.”

“The reason why they were called Black-Robed regiment is because every Sunday they would mount their pulpits wearing their long black clerical robes, that’s how preachers would preach in that day.  They would get in their pulpits wearing these long black robes, and they would preach the Word of God without fear or favor.  These men of God would get in their pulpits and they would basically tell people what or who they should and should not vote for, because they understood that in order to have a great government, then you must have great citizens.  The way that you have great citizens is by having great people that are rooted in the foundation of the Word of God.  Week after week after week, they expounded upon the principles of the proper role of government, the proper role of individuals, all underneath the kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

http://www.truthinhistory.org/the-black-robed-regiment.html

Might they all have berated a Supreme Being for the creation of “hell”, the supreme “atonement”, and bestowing, allowing and anointing “torture” on mankind?  One thinks not.

With the exception the “Hannibal Lecter M. D. (the) fictional character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris, and in the films adapted from them”, generic “torture”, we, as a culture do not understand the value of sacrifice, pain and suffering for character growth.

Protection of Life,Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, in the Service of a Noble nation and the preemption of evil (never to be proved), or such as self defense, while we shrink from any discomfort, “How far are we willing to go?”, descending on our loved ones.

“Torture is an impermissible evil, except (thus it is not impermissible) under two circumstances.  The first is the ticking time bomb.  (The Second is) An innocent’s life is at stake.  The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge.  In such a case, the choice is easy.” Charles Krauthammer.

Thus, as implied, with exceptions, if it is “permissible”, then one can argue, there are cases where it, “torture”, is not evil, for under no circumstances is “evil” the moral equivalent of “good”.

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc did battle; the subject a siege between two royal houses for the French throne, under the guidance of Divine Providence (Manifest Destiny is a perversion thereof) and, legend has it, many died.  She was tried by an ecclesiastic court, found guilty and burned at the stake, a Christian/Catholic “Fatwa” (Islamic Shariah Law type Sentence).

Is there not a thought provoking “absence” of non violence in this ecclesiastical judicial sentence?  Joan was nineteen years old.  Twenty-five years later Pope Callixtus III, reexamined the trial and found her innocent.  She was declared a “martyr” (the impossible option being to be declared “alive”), beatified and canonized as a saint in 1920…for the fruits of violence and the mandate of a Christian/Catholic Fatwa pivot.

What a grand gesture to affirm a mistake, the Occams Razor for spirituality sans religion, for violence vs. non-violence! Religious violence includes all violence that is motivated by religious precepts, texts or doctrines.  No “torture”, no Joan of Arc, no martyrs, no role models, nothing worth dying for….no Judeo-Christian-Philosophy….without the crucifixion and resurrection?

The Old Testament of the Bible is on occasion quite heavy handed, i.e. “an eye for an eye.” Is violence always evil?  How far are we willing to go?”  The Crucifixion is an excellent dilemma for those who “condemn” torture.  Where would Christianity be without the “torture” of the “cross” allowed by Divine intent?

When martyrs, heroes and patriots arise from the ashes of the Phoenix of “torture”, one begins to question, understand and maybe even applaud the sign, intent, or purpose, the commitment and courage of conviction. Without a “Price” paid there is no value…..or meaning for fallible humans!

Torture is the essence of the creation of Hell.  Torture is the means to an end in the chaos at end of world.  Torture is a campaign of the Coming of the twelfth Imam, the anti-Christ, or WWIII?

What is the “Torture” of living surrounded by those pledged and committed to your extinction-Israel?  Was “torture” not at the essence of Nathan Hale’s “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country!”  The “torture” of childbirth is not evil.  And contemplate the passage from Joseph Addison’s play, Cato,

How beautiful is death, when earn’d by virtue!

Who would not be that youth?  What pity is it
That we can die but once to serve our country.

It was called “Slab City” LATimes 12/18/2011, “Way Off the Grid”, California Section A 41, does “torture” not exist here, where those who rejected anarchy, gathered in pride, under the umbrella of Ayn Rands principled individualism, charitable egoism, selflessness, something others, Sal Alinsky, Cloward and Piven, Emma Goldman, called depravation and desolation.

Less by some standards, certainly off of the material grid of materialism, awash in self respect, and the power of “positive thinking”, these are special people reminiscent of the “Grapes of Wrath.” California is financially broke but these folks are spiritually wealthy.

No!  This is not Occupy Wall Street.  This is our generation’s special slice of humanity, poor, out of a job, driven from mainstream society by economic hardship.  These are the folks living the fruits of unprincipled capitalism, fate and a temporarily stumbling Republic.  Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped in the whirl wind of diminished exceptionalism, they set out for Slab City, situated between the Salton Sea and the Chocolate Mountain Gunnery range, RIP Camp Dunlap, a WWII Marine artillery training base, California, the “unintended’ fruits, the benefits of war (certainly “torture’ if one lived it on the front lines, at home or on foreign soil) driven efforts.

Slab City is a collection of free-spirited, young, retired “snowbirds” and the “tight money” crowd of all ages.  Along with thousands of other “Americans”, they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future.  There are few if any, and none welcomed here, whiners, protestors, anarchists or general malcontents.  These are not complainers, but patriots living the hand fate dealt them….with pride and dignity!

Could it be that “Slab City” is a noble nation’s answer to OWS, the heart and soul of the Tea Party, a culture of citizens embracing the “torture’ of a simple, imposed existence, the product of fate, chance or destiny, the very essence of the worn and threaded edges of Liberty and Freedom, handled gently even if packaged, at times, in the useable discards of prior generations?

The Untied Nations definition of “torture” has a back door exception.  Is war not “torture”.  Have we forgotten the psychologically intended detriment, disadvantage offered by the prayed for psychological “torture” of MAAD (mutually assured atomic destruction) and MAED (mutually assured economic destruction)?  “It is all in the definition and intent.”

Ponder Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s assassination onJanuary 30, 1948.  Was this not torture, “torture” bestowed on the living, for a “Greater” cause.  And if not this “price” what would have been the permanency, primacy, dominance of the message?  If they bring a knife, you bring as gun….etc., etc.,  Peace is not an accident or a “given.”  It must be earned and protected.  And it is worth praying for.

“It is all definition and intent.”  It is often said and repeated that “all is fair in love and war.”  Will history record that our great Republic perished because the enemy was not fair????

This is a prologue to a four (4) Part Series on “Torture”, a twisted and tortured semantic in search of a political win.

Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Dale Breckenridge Carnegie, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Frank Cervone, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King Jr, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Nathan Hale, The Black Robed Regiment, Torture

This entry was posted on January 11, 2012 at 6:02 am and is filed under Guest Writer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.