Patriotism and Torture
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He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.–from The Declaration of Independence
Every Fourth of July American citizens rush to buy and/or watch fireworks and gather around a barbecue somewhere. Some, however, who have managed to evolve beyond their prolonged infantile gratification find themselves re-assessing their relationship with America and its so-called values.
Every Fourth of July for me for the past eight years has come with an ever-deeper cognitive disconnect. The burning question in my mind is How do Americans continue to bridge the enormous gaps between patriotism, the Constitution, and torture? How did Americans get to the place where torture is now defined as the president chooses to define it? Why is it that there is no national outcry? Here is the definition of torture that works for the rest of the world: Torture and the Law
What is patriotism anyway? Is there a definitive answer? Time magazine published The War Over Patriotism in its June 26 issue, which contrasts the increasingly divisive topic: “When critics challenge Barack Obama’s patriotism, his supporters have a ready reply: True patriotism has nothing to do with little flags on politicians’ lapels. It’s not about symbols; it’s about actions. It’s not about odes to American greatness; it’s about taking on your government when it goes astray.”
Meanwhile, school children are pressured to repeat the hypocritical patriotic oath, “The Pledge of Allegiance.”
I submit that the “patriotism” that has rabidly co-opted our media, schools, and vast swathes of our interpersonal and cultural realities has brainwashed those who never learned how to think critically because over time critical thinking has been stripped from our educational curricula. I submit that those who claim to be most “patriotic” (i.e., wear their flag lapel pins and post enormous flags on their SUVs and websites) are, in fact, referring only to an extremely narrow brand of one or more of the following:
One thing we know for certain now, thanks to George Lakoff and his Don’t Think of an Elephant (and other works) is how bush (and his flag wavers), who proclaimed that we were either with him or against him (i.e., patriotic or anti-patriotic) was able to ram through his political ideology by using precise “framing” techniques to ramp up fear of “other.” In this case “other,” are the “terrorists,” that nebulous catch-all word that mostly refers to people of color, most of whom are entirely innocent of any crime, often only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Torture the terrorists!” has been the rabid, knee-jerk reaction to bush rhetoric for the past eight years. But as Darius Rejali writes in his book Torture and Democracy, the tendency toward torture has always been just beneath the surface of the American collective mind; it just took a bush to bring it to the conscious level and act upon it with impunity and blind entitlement. Such ignorant and narrow self-defined forms of “patriotism” were gleefully let loose under the guise of “enhanced interrogation” (a euphemism for torture) and “extraordinary rendition.”
So, the next time I agree to participate in a day that celebrates independence, I will continue to question what lurks behind the reality and rail against those who have stolen and re-engineered ever-larger chunks of that independence.
As long as a nation uses torture as a means to obtain information or to satisfy some dark and sticky criminal desire in clear violation of its own Constitution, I will continue to question and rail. I defy anyone who continues to claim that America is a nation independent of the very reasons that it formed in the first place. I strongly urge every citizen to re-read the Declaration of Independence (which, along with the Constitution, bush and his flag-waving followers claim to be an irrelevant piece of paper) before we head out to blindly watch pyrotechnic shows. We really need to see what has been violated, what has been stolen from us. We really need to see how necessary it is for us to dissolve our political bands. All you need to do is to substitute one “He” for the other: George II (American pResident) for George III (English King).
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
