Enough!

Our once proud country is now on its knees, crouching behind torturers. The President wants Congress to legalize the CIA's use of torture and to be able to try and imprison people without their seeing the supposed evidence against them. He wants to get around the Geneva Conventions. Enough! Our country is being turned into something dirty. We used to be proud of it. Remember why? We looked down on tin horn dictators who 'disappeared' and tortured people? Now we're doing it. Remember when the Soviet Union was the bad bear, with its gulags? Now we're using secret prisons.

The Senators who opposed the President’s quest for impunity are now wanting to compromise. Our representatives need to understand that it's time to stand up and pick a side. There is no compromise on torture. You're either doing something vile, or you're not. There is no middle ground between decency and fascism.

No matter how bad things got in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia or Red China, the world could always look to America as a beacon of light and freedom. That is no longer true. We are the strongest country in the world. We are the richest. But we're not that beacon anymore. We can be. We don't have to be afraid of the dark. There is an old proverb, 'Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.' Call, write, email and FAX your Congressmen. Tell them to reject this cowardly legislation.

Jimmy C.