For the record, I’m not going to use this space to pit “DemocRATS” over “Repugnicans” or vice-versa. What I wrote ten months ago holds true: I’m extremely wary of politicizing this critically important, little-known AT/RAD epidemic and having it devolve into a partisan pissing contest.

Luckily, most people tend to pretty much forget about partisanship when they’re made aware of these kinds of horrors. Me, I encounter simultaneously both tremendous compassion and vitriolic condescension from opposite ends of the political spectrum, ain’t that swell? I’ve learned firsthand how much respect this child abuse epidemic pays to party lines and affiliations among its victims, perpetrators and opponents. (Answer: zero.)

I’m not going to launch a debate here about whether the torture of terrorists can ever be justified. Not yet, at least.

Instead, I’d just like to point out that even though this marvelous country I have the privilege of living in can talk a blue streak about the ethics of torturing war criminals and terror suspects, it remains deaf, dumb and blind to THIS: