The Sickness of the Right Wing Base
This, apparently, is what passes for humor amongst American “conservatives” now days:
Waterboarding, in case you didn’t know, is a form of torture consisting of restraining a person on their back, head angled downward, and pouring water over the victim’s face and into their breathing passages. In other words, when someone is waterboarded, they are drowning. Sometimes this forced drowning results in death, sometimes not, but the physical damage (water in the lungs, etc.) and deep psychological trauma are undeniable.
Waterboarding has been used throughout history by such groups as the Spanish Inquisition, both the Japanese and Germans in WWII, the Chilean Junta of Augusto Pinochet, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
…and the United States Military and intelligence services, under direct authorization from the higest levels of the Bush administration.
Apparently, since “we” did it to alleged terrorists, it suddenly becomes not-torture, and is therefore OK.
Now, if you want to wear a t-shirt that shows your support of the Republican candidate (or lack thereof for the Democrat), or expresses your pride in your right-leaning political stance, fine. By all means, go right ahead. But the above t-shirt is beyond the pale. The attitude expressed is by no definition “conservative”, and it’s not funny. It’s just sick.
The people that find this shirt funny wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something that said, “I’D RATHER BE RAPING CHILDREN”, yet rape is a physically and psychologically devastating experience, also used by the Inquisition, Imperial Japan, the Nazis, the Pinochet regime, and the Khmer Rouge. Where’s the difference? Both are acts that have gotten people executed for torture and war crimes, which is exactly what waterboarding is: torture and a war crime.
And our government has authorized its use.
And there are people that think it’s funny.
Those people make me sick.
