Thank you, John, for helpfully guiding the political debate in a useful direction. That one word you kept coming back to, "principles", is the key to framing the debate. Principles are the key to framing the debate because they are the very keystone of politics.

The most subversive force for good in the media today is Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show". Playing the role of court jester, Stewart is relentless in exposing the sartorial status of the emperor. This week Stewart showed a video clip of George Bush trying to explain why his administration's use of torture and related practices didn't violate the Geneva Convention's unequivocal ban on "outrages upon human dignity". <link>

Bush is far too juvenile to grasp the concept that respect for human dignity is the foundation principle upon which Western civilization is built. The principle has deep Biblical roots. The Founding Fathers almost took the status of the principle for granted but, anticipating a horror like the Bush administration, they wisely banned cruel and unusual punishment in the Eighth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. They could not have anticipated Bush's end run around the Constitution with a wink and a nod from idiot-savants like Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.

The question I would like to put forward for consideration is this: How did we come to a state of affairs by which the Republicans, with the willing collusion of the Democrats, have casually tossed the foundation principle of Western civilization out the window? More to the point, how did they do it without provoking riots in the streets? And doesn't that make the citizens of the United States passive accomplices in what has devolved into a betrayal of our principles and of our precious heritage of being bound to those principles?

There is a saying that it is hard to remind yourself that your objective is to drain the swamp when you're up to your ass in alligators. The "lessons of history" can be boiled down to this: Never forget that your objective is to drain the swamp. Maintaining perspective in the face of crises and distractions is of critical importance to any nation, but especially to a nation that has assumed the many burdens that America has.

America's narrowing of perspective over the last six decades, tunnel vision now bordering on blindness, has gotten us into a terrible and unforgiving nonpartisan national nightmare. Electing "an insecure, sadistic juvenile incapable of moral reasoning", in the words of Steve Almond, has now taken us to the very brink of the cliff. Can any politician take the hand of this nation stumbling around in the dark, lead it away from the cliff, and guide it back onto a narrow path illuminated with principles? Frankly, that is a question that leads me to despair because all of the evidence points to "no" as the answer.