The Colonoscopy Theory

I’ve been thinking about terrorism a lot lately. (Probably because I just finished Nick Flynn’s The Ticking is the Bomb ) What to do with presumed terrorists when we find them? How do we get vital information out of someone without our American Moral Compass plunging into dangerous territory? And I’m not talking about someone like Dick Cheney’s moral compass. I’m talking about the average forward-thinking NORMAL American who isn’t psychotic.

We all know that America doesn’t torture, or at least we’ve been told that, ad nauseam. We all also know that’s complete bullshit. (SEE: Extraordinary rendition, meaning state-sponsored-kidnapping, or outsourcing torture.)

I’m personally against torture because I’m not so sure we ever get any kind of reliable information from it. I mean, if I was being water-boarded or made to stand on my feet with my arms out at my sides for days on end, I’d toss my eighty-four year old Nanna under the bus to make it stop.

And beyond that...it's just icky, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to be better than that? People in general, I mean. The Human Race.

But then it came to me. Epiphany!

The Dreaded Colonoscopy. First, you’re forced to drink a gallon of vile-tasting swill, 8 ounces at a time - one every ten minutes - until you’re ready to puke.


Then you wait while your tummy-tum-tum begins to gurgle and grumble, after which you spend the rest of the day on the john. You can’t eat anything until after your appointment with the sadist who will blather on about the latest shenanigans on Jersey Shore as he rummages around in your pa-dunk-a-dunk with a tube that has a camera on the end.

There’s not a person alive that wants to be subjected to this fresh hell, but since it’s something four out of five proctologists recommend to their patients when they turn fifty, it can’t be considered cruel and unusual punishment, can it?

And because here in America we’re givers, if it turns out the person being 'tortured' is innocent, they can go ahead and remove any pre-cancerous polyps for them as a parting ‘sorry for the inconvenience.’