Debating Reality

The current "debate" over water-boarding has brought up an interesting point. We Americans are so committed to Democracy that many of us have accepted the strange notion that every issue has two sides. Unfortunately, reality is not democratic. The facts of life in this world are independent of our polls and debates. Five centuries ago, the majority of people on our planet would have voted that it was flat. This did not make The Earth any less round.
Cleverly, our government has taken this myth of a two-sided reality and used it to obscure its illegal use of torture. Water-boarding is torture. It is a classic form of torture, which is why it has a name. The procedure has been documented back to the Middle Ages and its use is worldwide. The U.S. Government was caught advocating torture and the sham debate over water-boarding has only increased the embarrassment. It is as if we were debating whether there is a Pacific Ocean or whether two plus two equals four while the whole world watches.