letter to the editor number 1

To our local newspaper:

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In a December 20, 2004 letter to the editor, writer John Ferrara is concerned that pro-Kerry and anti-Bush bumper stickers are teaching bad values to our children. Although I have no such stickers on my vehicle, I would suggest to Mr. Ferrara that we are in worse danger of teaching bad values to our children when they learn that Mr. Bush specifically asked his White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to legally justify torture. Gonzales and his team wrote such a memo in August of 2002, and he has been rewarded by Mr. Bush with a nomination to be our next Attorney General.

Thanks to Bush and Gonzales, our country now tortures people who have not only not been found guilty through due process, but in most cases do not even have access to due process at all. Cruel and unusual punishment of the guilty is explicitly barred by the 8th amendment, but apparently it is just fine in the eyes of Bush and Gonzales for anyone we capture, regardless of their guilt or innocence.

Our nation is now an international torture criminal. Future generations of Americans may well wonder why the “bad values” of our current citizenry extend to pretending this is not the case, and allowing the torture of prisoners, sanctioned by Mr. Bush, to continue.

Finally, since Mr. Bush is not equivalent to “America”, opposing him is not “hating America”. I call it “thinking”.

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This was in response to this piece of idiocy:

Sore losers teach the wrong values

Liberal sore losers, please remove your Kerry and anti-Bush bumper stickers. They are negative, distracting, offensive in some cases, and anti-American when they say Bush "is not your president."

Bush won fair and square, and he is the president and commander in chief. You are teaching bad values to your children. If you have a problem, then get involved instead of just hating America.

Bush gives us all the finger.