"What kind of people should we be?" Yes! --CORRESPONDENT OF THE DAY

[underpants]

Editor, Times-Dispatch: In her Op/Ed column, "Is it Torture? If You Have to Ask, You Already Know," Kathleen Parker concludes with the following:

"When we ask if something is torture, the answer is another question: What kind of people should we be?"

My answer to her final question is a resounding yes! To explain, let me say that I am writing in the spirit of the rabbis who commented on the following verse: "Ye shall therefore keep my statues . . . which if a man do, he shall live by them." (Lev. 18:5). The comment found in the Talmud is "You shall live by them, and not die by them." This is the basis for the practice of setting aside the prohibitions of Jewish law when a life is in the balance. So, eat ham or starve? Eat ham. Ride in an ambulance on the Sabbath to the emergency room? In a life-threatening situation, by all means, ride.

So now, "What kind of people should we be?" Yes! We should be people that would be (and not die). We should be people who have the good sense to secure their own existence -- by authorizing their government, through the appropriate military channels, to use effective but rare applications of interrogating methods that will secure the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of its citizens.

I admire Parker and like-minded citizens who live according to such refined sensibilities, but to be so refined at the expense of one's survival? I say, live by them, but do not die by them. Or, if you insist on dying by them, do you mind if I don't have to? I'm not that refined, sad to say.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/letters/article/ALEXANDERD_20090512-181422/267285/