Usually I try to be irreverent on principle. I strive to be a smart a** as much as possible, even when confronting serious subjects such as torture. I mean, God gave us the ability to laugh, and it's our obligation to try and do so as much as possible.

That said, let's talk about waterboarding. Every time I hear this in the news or read it in the paper, the first thing that pops in my head is a picture of a wakeboarder, a water sport. I have to stop and think about it for a moment, and wonder what's the big deal about wakeboarding?

And since I now live in the beautiful sunny state of FL, I've seen guys who surf on the wake behind a boat (It looks awesome and if it weren't for all the dang alligators in the water around here, I might try it) But that's called wake surfing, but I still think Surfboard. You surf in water. Waterboard. See the connections?

So what's the big deal.

Well, here's what some of the people in our intelligence communities do or condone. They strap someone down on a board, tilt them head down, wrap a towel around their face, and then pour water over the towel. The individual in question gets the sensation of drowning, and it can lead to all sorts of damage. But what torture can't? I mean, John McCain had bamboo shoots hammered underneath his fingernails and toenails. That hurt, right? And in the tropical environment where he was held, could have led to infection, which could have turned into a blood infection, which could have killed him.

A lot of what if's.

Which is what waterboarding is about. The people committing the torture don't really want the tortured person to die, at least not until the extract information from them. So it's the intent of the torture that's important.

But this can be beaten by a strong willed person possessing information. People are trained to fight interrogation, so the intelligence community has devised all sorts of little tricks to break down defenses, such as sleep and food deprivation, sensory and community deprivation, humiliation, and physical abuse, which softens the subject up for the water torture, which is icing on the cake. (or ice on the cake, since you don't use water to make icing.)

Torture is against American law. Plan and simple. Which is why when we capture a high value subject, we extradite them to an allied country where torture is not against the law. American citizens do not perform the torture, but participate in an advisory capacity to gather information.

The information we gather is then used to prevent terrorist attacks against American and allied interests.

So we go into a real gray area here; defining the value of one human life and the cost to obtain information.

I knew someone who died in the WTC on 9/11 so I fall on the side of the debate as being pro-whatever it takes to preserve lives. By that I mean that it's okay to sacrifice one life to save thousands. But in feeling that way, I know I'm on a slippery slope that's covered in olive oil and banana peels. Because what's the cut off? And which life?

Someone asked me if it would be okay for one of my children to be killed to save one hundred lives. Or one thousand. I wanted to strap them to a wakeboard and drag them behind the boat. How dare they ask me if one of my lives is worth a thousand others!

How do we define what's okay anymore? Sure, it's worth one terrorist's life to save hundreds of Americans. Heck, I think it's worth one terrorist's life to save one American soldier's life. After all, it's him or our way of life, right?

But I'm also a proponent of law. If waterboarding is against the law, but our government allows it to happen for the greater good, then we can look past other laws for the greater good. It's against the law to speed, but I don't want to be late or the good around my house is disturbed.

Now it's black and white, instead of gray, and we just can't live that way. The world, as we have designed it today (and it is designed by a series of choices we've all made personally or by putting someone in charge in the White House) is a gray world.

Killing a person is wrong. But if someone would have killed that idiot kid in Omaha, then maybe 5 people would be home for Christmas this year, instead of 9. Okay, so killing a person is wrong, unless they are trying to kill you, then it's all right. It's justified.

Gray.

So killing a terrorist is okay, since they are trying to kill you first. It's preemptive.

How about making a terrorist think you're going to kill him so he will give you information, before you actually kill him, because if the roles were reversed, he would probably kill you?

Gray.

I like this country. I like the idea of this country. I do not like our policies, or the government leading us right now. I think we've lost sight of something along the way. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should.

Or maybe, we should do something because we can. I've read that pepper spray is biodegradable, and when inserted using a catheter is intensely painful. Like you want to bash your head against the wall and rip things off so they will stop burning kind of painful. If someone threatened me with that kind of pain, I'd probably answer their questions.

Just like if someone threatened to strap me to a board and almost drown me would make me answer questions. Which is probably why I choose not to be a terrorist. I don't want to play by those rules, and in this game, there are no rules, there is just survival.

And since there are no rules, then tortured confessions are allowed. By any means necessary.

All of the rules were thrown out the window on a September morning when a man sitting at his desk doing a stock trade felt 1.6 seconds of excruciating pain as he was consumed by a fireball of jet fuel.

People are not born terrorists. They are created, and no matter how you think they are created, whether policy comes into play or economic condition, or even religious extremism, terrorists do not believe in rules. They do not believe in law. So long as we play this game with them, then neither can we.