Apart from torture being inhuman it also escalates violence to a new level. If we can justify torture to catch those whom we call criminals what right will we have to complain if someone who considers us "criminals" and uses torture against our soldiers or citizens?

Violence will dispel violence only when darkness can be dispelled by darkness. True measure of civilization is not how low we can stoop to deal with an enemy but how high can we raise our enemy so that we can see eye-to-eye.

In a capitalist/materialist world everyone has become selfish and self-centered. We pass this message to children when we exhort them to be successful in life by any means possible. Thus, when relationships are contingent on "What am I going to get out of it?." the potential for conflict and unhappiness is rife. Family ties are very weak now and when people do get together it is more out of tradition than love and respect. Gandhi said "Materialism and morality have an inverse relationship. When one increases the other decreases." I believe we are witnessing this phenomenon now.

I think we must first and foremost be thankful for life. Second we ought to be thankful for family and friends but these are becoming rare commodities. Many families are broken up and friends are like autumn leaves delicately poised to fall with a whiff of wind. But, we do have life and we have intelligence and we should be able to make a resolve to strengthen our bonds with family and friends and eventually with all of humanity. If we continue to label and stereotype people we will alienate them, but if we begin to respect people as human beings whoever they are and wherever they come from then creating a bond of friendship will become easier.

I believe the United States has double standards as far as sex is concerned. So much about the United States is sexually oriented. The freedom of sex, the lust for sex, the millions (or billions?) of dollars spent on enhancing sexual pleasures and discovery of newer drugs so that sex can be enjoyed even when one has at least one foot in the grave. Marriages are no longer sacrosanct, they are contracts not so much to raise a loving family but to provide sexual enjoyment. Politicians are products of this obsessive sexual milieu so why should anyone expect them to be saints in their public life?

Of course it all boils down to whose moral standards are we going to judge them by? If these standards are not observed by anyone can we legitimately apply them to politicians? For someone whose sex life began some sixty years ago sex outside of marriage is a sin because to me sex is for procreation and not for pleasure alone. But in the 21st century this line of thought is blasphemous. Today sex is nothing more than physical enjoyment, like eating ice cream when you feel like it.

The moral standards for human behavior have been set by human beings and, therefore, they can be changed and even challenged by human beings. To those of us who have remained faithful to one partner in our collective lives such promiscuity is unpardonable and a violation of the commandments. To the more modern who believe in sex as a pleasurable pastime they should stop indulging in double standards.