Congress’s Dirty Little Torture Secret: Exposing the Hypocrisy of the Bush-Era Empire

This ain’t your typical read, folks. In this piece, I pull back the curtain on the Bush-era torture regime and shine a floodlight on the dirty little secret they’d rather you forget: Congress was more than happy to rubber-stamp your liberty away, all while patting themselves on the back for it. It’s a grim reminder that the so-called “rule of law” is nothing more than a cheap costume party for politicians and their cronies. As a die-hard libertarian, I support transparency, free markets, and the sacred right to live your damn life free from government jackboots. And if you’re still clinging to illusions about democracy’s dignity, it’s time to crack open this piece and let the cold, hard truth wash over you like ice water down the spine of a detainee.

For all you starry-eyed optimists still clutching your pearls about the “uniquely hateful” state of politics today, let me remind you: this bile-soaked circus has been around the block more times than your local streetwalker. Back in the Bush years, the GOP frothed at the mouth to stamp out any whiff of dissent about their global crusade—especially when it came to their precious war on terror.

I learned this the hard way. After I went on Fox News in 2006 and called out Bush’s illegal financial surveillance racket, the blowback came faster than a SWAT raid at dawn. My inbox filled with bile from government bootlickers, including one proud patriot who told me I should be gassed with “the Iraqi poison gas that does not exist.” Ah, the sweet scent of cognitive dissonance in the morning!

Most of the mainstream media didn’t have the guts to call out the emperor’s new waterboard, so I went for the jugular with satire. My “Modest Proposal: Coerce Congress to Tell the Truth” ran in the Los Angeles Times in 2006—thanks to the wry eye of Matt Welch, now of Reason fame. Let’s dust it off and sharpen it up for our current Orwellian era.