The Pete's blog/

I saw the above image just moments ago at the top of DrudgeReport.com and found myself a bit offended. While I definitely lean liberal, I did four years in ROTC and got as close as my pilot physical to joining the military, so I feel like I have a fair-sized conservative streak in me. The thing is, who ever thought that the phrase "I'd Rather be Waterboarding" would be great on a T-shirt aimed at conservatives really needs to study his history--or at the very least his dictionary.



Waterboarding has been defined as torture for centuries. I believe we tried and executed Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded US soldiers, so I don't understand how anyone could think joking about waterboarding or seeming to endorse it could POSSIBLY be a conservative value.



There is precisely ONE kind of person who thinks waterboarding is cool and that's an asshole.



A selfish, shortsighted, hypocritical asshole who wants one set of laws for himself and another for everyone else.



A person like this does not deserve to be in control of a salt shaker, let alone anything substantive.



Here's a great test if you're not sure if what you're doing to a suspected criminal and/or terrorist is torture (or even right):



Ask yourself if you'd want what you're doing to them to be done to you, *even if you were innocent*.



See, because that's the risk we run as imperfect humans--we get things wrong all the time. Real conservatives know this--it's why our government was designed the way it was--to move very, very slowly. Change things, like Congress did by handing over power to Bush to wage war on Iraq, and you end up going against all of the values the Founding Fathers had in mind. This sounds like the very opposite of conservative, to me.



So, conservatives need to speak up and say what they're for and against--I know it's against a conservative's nature, generally, to be loud with their opinions, but their views are being misrepresented. ANY kind of torture is NOT a conservative value, or else this country would never have been founded.



Just my 2 yen, of course. I could be wrong.