America's Sacred Contract: No Torture

Although there are tens of millions of beautiful, loving people out there working and giving and praying and meditating, we need the rest of you to come on board.

This is no time to sit on the fence. It's decision time. Time to decide if you are going to be on the side of love or fear, grabbing or sharing, killing or forgiving, insisting on humane standards or letting your government torture in your name.

It's time to realize that peace is an inside job and each one of us must tackle it.

I have been corresponding with an extremely vitriolic man who believes in the war in Iraq, claiming that "there are no Muslims for peace."

This is a ridiculous statement. The Muslims in your community and in mine are for peace. If there were no Muslims for peace in Iraq, all our troops would have been killed by now, for every Iraqi would have turned against them.

Of note, a fatwa was issued by France's largest Muslim fundamentalist organization, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, forbidding the rioting and "any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others."

But as Eric Margolis has written, the inspiration behind the rioting in France is not Osama bin Laden, but American and French "gangsta " rappers.

Muslims want peace. My correspondent refuses to acknowledge that.

Yet the basis behind my correspondent's assertion has finally become clear. He finally admitted that he doesn't care if innocent Iraqis are killed. Indeed, he wrote that is in favor of killing every Muslim because "they want to drag us back into the twelfth century."

Although this man calls himself an American, his sentiments are those of the fascist and equal to Hitler's.

Ironically, his assertion is a lie as were Hitler's about the Jews. It is we who want to change Middle-Eastern cultures and make them more western. The issue about whether or not they live in the 12th century is not worth debating here simply because I'm afraid we don't need anyone to drag us backwards.

There are many like my correspondent - and some in very powerful positions - who are in favor or our committing atrocities typical of the twelfth century.

The greatest evidence is the torture that has been going on in U.S. prisons. There have been studies that say what has happened to foreign detainees is symptomatic of deeper problems in our respect - or lack of it - toward life.

While it is an easy cop-out to blame those who are in favor of keeping abortion legal for lowering our standards, our present problems cannot be blamed on them. For example, it's common for those who are against abortion to be in favor of war and the death penalty.

Such inconsistency is insane. If you are "pro life" you must be pro all life, including adult lives and those who you think of as your enemies. Those are the rules. It's all or none, not a picking and choosing situation.

And who are violently opposed to abortion - to the point of injuring those who are in favor of it - are the anti-Christ, pure and simple. They focus on the mote in their sister's eye while ignoring the plank in their own.

But this is a big problem in our nation. We have become a nation of people who tell others: do what I say, not what I do.

We all do it, it has just become a matter of degree.

Of note, our nation was founded on principles that forbid torture and inhumane punishments - and rightly so.

For early settlers steeped in Puritanism had little compunction about leaving people in stocks, whipping them or mercilessly tarring and feathering those who broke the law. We have always had a fight between the compassionate and the fearful, but, thanks to God, compassionate men won out in writing our Constitution.

Why? We have a divine destiny. And we need higher guiding principles for this nation if we have any chance of fulfilling that destiny. To understand the nature of our contract with God, as a nation, please read Carolyn Myss' remarkable The Sacred Contract of America.

We have an agreement with God to live up to a higher standard. It's time to get back on track with no excuses.

Let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamour and evil speaking, be put away from you. Ephesians 4:31

With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Matthew 7:2