Torture, muthafucka

I get it, we're angry. We've had another terrorist attack, innocent people were maimed and killed, and we have to go through the whole security clampdown tango all over again. We've been reminded once again that our children stand a good chance of being raised in a world defined by fear. There is no reason or excuse to be glib or dismissive about any of that.

But come the fuck on with the torture talk, already.

Everywhere you look, some internet tough guy is talking about all the things he would like to do to this Tsarnaev kid.

"We ought to waterboard this scumbag and see who his friends are!"

"Hang him by his balls and make him squeal! Nothing is too harsh for this POS!!!!"

"Lemme at 'im! I'll moiderize him for what he done did to all of us!"

(I'm Facebook friends with several cartoon characters from the 1940's)

Now, I understand visceral, hyperbolic reactions. I really wouldn't be me without them. Anyone who has read my impassioned, reactionary, and vaguely threatening open letter to the Motion Picture Academy regarding  Elia Kazan's lifetime achievement award can attest to this. What frightens and saddens me is when people look at me like I'm crazy or un-American for pointing out that we shouldn't do that. It's like I want the terrorists to win.
There were a lot of conversations like this in the wake of 9/11, and they came up again when the CIA's 'extraordinary rendition' program for high-value terrorist captives came to light. Thing is, like far too many national attempts at cognition, that conversation never really went anywhere. There are many people that have no issue with torture, and that is usually because they:

1) don't have a clear idea of what torture entails

2) don't think critically about what it does to a person to torture or be tortured

3) never listened carefully to the lyrics of the Jacksons'  1984 hit single "Torture"

There also seems to be a disconnect about why we shouldn't torture people up in here. Little thing called the Constitution, which sports a tasty little tidbit called the Eighth Amendment. It has to do with cruel and unusual punishment and whether or not we should do that (the gist of it is that, no we shouldn't). Don't concern yourselves too much with the details though, because lord knows that people in D.C. don't. Even one of the guys who we used to be able to count on to go against the grain of his own party and say 'Hey, not cool, stop with the torture' is joining the chorus to declare Tsarnaev an  'enemy combatant', effectively negating any rights he has as a defendant. 
That's right, John McCain. A guy who was tortured. He wants to see the hurdle of due process removed from this kid's case so that we can do whatever we want to him in a room without windows under the pretense of a need to extract information. You want to make this place a police state, go ahead. I doubt most people would notice anyway.
Just don't act like that doesn't make us exactly like the people that want to kill us.