Torture

[Guest DrTom]

I caught "60 Minutes" after having dinner at my parents' house, and the lead segment talked about torture, specifically the possibility of the US torturing terrorist suspects to get more information out of them. An attorney came on, basically defending torture under a specific set of circumstances, and saying its use isn't expressly forbidden in the Constitution. I expected it to be a conservative attorney, but it was none other than Harvard law professor...

 

Alan Dershowitz.

 

Perhaps the most liberal defense attorney in America, Dershowitz said torture would be acceptable only if you had what he called the "smoking bomb" scenario: you have a terrorist suspect in custody, who is unwilling to part with the information he has about a pending attack that will kill several hundred to several thousand people. Alan Dershowitz, of all people, said it would be acceptable and legal to torture that person to get the information, because it would save so many lives.

 

His reason was that "due process" means the process you are due for your crimes, and that such a process is different when you are a terrorist with a clear plan in place for killing American citizens, than when you are Joe Criminal.

 

When Mike Wallace (another noted liberal) pressed him about it, Dershowitz said there was an ethical discussion that took place in his classroom on September 10th of last year: would it be right to shoot down a terrorist-controlled plane full of passengers that was going to crash into the Empire State Building. As he said, "On September 10th, that's a valid question. On September 12th, it's not a question at all."

 

As much as I thought I would never see myself type these words, I actually agree with Dershowitz on this one. I think torture is acceptable, explicitly and only in the situation he laid out. Its legality is for law professors and Constitutional scholars to debate; its practicality is obvious if there are several thousand lives on the line.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

No. Torture is never acceptable under any circumstances.

 

This is not a new argument. Michael Levin proposed it ages ago, and people throughout history have brought forward equally specious arguments. It's attractive only to the weak and the cowardly, those who succumb to the lures of brutality.

Practicality? What the hell does that have to do with it? Our highest duty to act nobly, not practically, and nobility is never preserved by evil.

Do you really think the people you might save by such an immitigably evil act would thank you for it? I don't. I think you'd be damned by them, by those they love, and by Providence.

[Guest danielisthor]

I caught "60 Minutes" after having dinner at my parents' house, and the lead segment talked about torture, specifically the possibility of the US torturing terrorist suspects to get more information out of them. An attorney came on, basically defending torture under a specific set of circumstances, and saying its use isn't expressly forbidden in the Constitution. I expected it to be a conservative attorney, but it was none other than Harvard law professor...

 

Alan Dershowitz.

 

Perhaps the most liberal defense attorney in America, Dershowitz said torture would be acceptable only if you had what he called the "smoking bomb" scenario: you have a terrorist suspect in custody, who is unwilling to part with the information he has about a pending attack that will kill several hundred to several thousand people. Alan Dershowitz, of all people, said it would be acceptable and legal to torture that person to get the information, because it would save so many lives.

 

His reason was that "due process" means the process you are due for your crimes, and that such a process is different when you are a terrorist with a clear plan in place for killing American citizens, than when you are Joe Criminal.

 

When Mike Wallace (another noted liberal) pressed him about it, Dershowitz said there was an ethical discussion that took place in his classroom on September 10th of last year: would it be right to shoot down a terrorist-controlled plane full of passengers that was going to crash into the Empire State Building. As he said, "On September 10th, that's a valid question. On September 12th, it's not a question at all."

 

As much as I thought I would never see myself type these words, I actually agree with Dershowitz on this one. I think torture is acceptable, explicitly and only in the situation he laid out. Its legality is for law professors and Constitutional scholars to debate; its practicality is obvious if there are several thousand lives on the line.

Interesting, considering he said he would defend Adolf Hitler.

[Guest Some Guy]

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

 

Torture is covered and it is unconstitutional.

[Guest SupaTaft]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with torture. In some cases, it is the only way short of killing the suspected's family and friends to get information from them. When most of us hear the word torture we almost automatically think of the rack, the cat-o-nine-tails, the Chinese water torture, or other medieval instruments of torture. If our government were to re-initiate torture as an accepted means of extracting information, our scientists would certainly come up with a completely harmless means of torture.

 

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that a drug could be devised to allow the mind to slip for a time and for an interrigator to ask questions, to which the accused would quietly reveal the desired informations. Torture would keep so-called "terrorism" down (this expression itself is exaggerated as every crime inspires terror) and would either keep organized crime in check or at least keep it down to almost nothing but smuggling.

 

People need to question their old beliefs and dogmas in order to allow true justice to be done, because the whole "justice at the price of our unfounded beliefs" thing pisses me off. If you kill and aren't clever enough to get caught you should be killed instead of costing the government money.

 

-Taft

[Guest SupaTaft]

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

 

Torture is covered and it is unconstitutional.

For excessive blarring of rap music, some states have made the offenders sit in a room with blaring country music.

 

This is both cruel and unusual, but was still accepted by the government.

 

-Taft

[Guest Cancer Marney]

What the hell are you even talking about? "A completely harmless means of torture?" That's a contradiction in terms. Torture is the infliction of pain, and pain harms people by definition.

 

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that a drug could be devised to allow the mind to slip for a time and for an interrigator to ask questions, to which the accused would quietly reveal the desired informations.

It must be nice to be so absolutely certain about something you have no knowledge of. Or are you a behavioural psychologist, a chemist, and a neurologist? Even if your ridiculous idea could work, it's unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment: "No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."

 

Question our old beliefs? We live in a civilised society governed by the rule of law, not an anarchy based on convenience and dictated to by evil, ignorant little degenerates like you.

[Guest Retro Rob]

If our government were to re-initiate torture as an accepted means of extracting information, our scientists would certainly come up with a completely harmless means of torture.

Then it wouldn't really be considered torure anymore, would it.

 

Main Entry: [1]tor·ture

Pronunciation: 'tor-ch&r

Function: noun

Etymology: French, from Late Latin tortura, from Latin tortus, past participle of torquEre to twist; probably akin to Old High German drAhsil turner, Greek atraktos spindle

Date: 1540

1 a : anguish of body or mind : AGONY b : something that causes agony or pain

2 : the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure

3 : distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument : STRAINING

[Guest SupaTaft]

Torture does not have to be painful. Torture can mean many different things. It can mean something irritable, not neccessarily painful. If we can make devise a machine to make men fly and grow human ears on the backs of mice than I'm damned sure we can make a drug where you can ask a question and get an honest answer.

 

The drug would be administered to someone who is not tried by a court of law, simply someone who has the information that our government wants. It would be no more harmful than a pair of handcuffs and a bit more effective. The idea is gold, but there will always be people who are unwilling to go out on a limb and try something different to involve any advancement faster than the rate of the growth of moss.

 

Our soceity is far from civilized. If we were cilized, nothing would ever go wrong. Everyone would be happy, no one would be in jail and no one would commit a crime. Civility is a useless gesture, instigated by fools over 1000 years ago. True civility can not be reached until the masses are quieted.

 

-Taft

[Guest Cancer Marney]

...

 

Callicles.

[Guest Powerplay]

...

 

Callicles.

Sorry, Marney, but my knowledge of the Greeks probably isn't up to yours, but who is Callicles? Not that I really care for Greek History, as it doesn't really fit into my daily life at all.

 

And I honestly think that torture doesn't make anything correct. It only forces the answer you want, not the truth. I would go on a limb and say that most answers given under torture are falsehoods just to save the victim from pain.

[Guest SupaTaft]

Pleasure is good, might is right, and law is nothing but the

combination of the many weak against the few strong. - Callicles

 

All too true.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

who is Callicles?

Callicles is the fellow who tries to refute Socrates at the end of Plato's Gorgias. He, like SupaTaft, denied the very existence of nobility, claimed that law was an instrument not of justice but of the repression of the strong, and that it was right and just that the law of the jungle should prevail. In short, he was an anarchist. He neither refuted Socrates nor was convinced by him; at the end of the dialogue, he simply tired of the conversation and allowed Socrates to have the last word.

 

If I try to argue with SupaTaft, I'm sure the conversation will end much the same way. I will try to evangelise him, and he will deny that any such things as virtue and goodness exist. My soul is not made of gold, and I'm not arrogant enough to believe that my powers of persuasion are greater than those of Socrates.

 

So, as in the Gorgias, I'll let him have the last word here: "This is the best way of life - to live and die in the pursuit of righteousness and all other virtues. Let us follow this, I say, inviting others to join us, not that which you believe in and commend to me, for it is worthless, dear Callicles."

[Guest SupaTaft]

There is no righteousness, but you can search for it if you wish. Its not my ground to convince you either way. Just seems like a waste of life, looking for something far away and never finding it, instead of looking for something close to your current position and acheiving it.

 

So I close this glorious evening with a boast. I, SupaTaft, who rarely ventures out of his own e-fed, have defeated Marney, one of the most respected posters on the board in a battle of wits and philosophical babbling.

 

That's one for the sig.

 

-Taft

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Your extremely high opinion of me is flattering, but I think I've simply refused to fight. <g>

[Guest Chuck Woolery]

Thor, get your egotistical ass back to the JL boards. Marney owned you and you know it.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

No, I didn't. I can't, because his position is perfectly logical and self-consistent. It's also evil, in my opinion, but since he denies the existence of evil I have no argument. We just acknowledged our stalemate early without bothering to go through the whole game.

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

So I close this glorious evening with a boast. I, SupaTaft, who rarely ventures out of his own e-fed, have defeated Marney, one of the most respected posters on the board in a battle of wits and philosophical babbling.

Huh?

 

Anyhoo...like someone said above, torture dosn't even guarantee you get the truth. Just that you bloody your hands.

[Guest SupaTaft]

First off, Van Siclen drag your carcass back to the boards. Remember, it'll only be another 22 months until you get bumped! Keep counting down!

 

Second, I commend you Marney for being a kind enough person not too flame me. Not saying I wont brag about this for months to come, but you shocked me by not trying to outdo me. For this I commend you.

 

Still, you backed down and allowed me the chance for victory. BTW it has been added to my sig. My victory has been noted for all to behold.

 

-Taft

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

This guy is cool, in an obnoxious kinda way

[Guest Ken]

Supataft, that is the most pathetic signature I've ever seen.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Second, I commend you Marney for being a kind enough person not too flame me. Not saying I wont brag about this for months to come, but you shocked me by not trying to outdo me.

I did flame you. I called you an evil degenerate, and I also said you're an anarchist. (Those are insults in my book, although they're meaningless in yours.) I didn't try to outdo you because I know I can't. The argument's an old one and it has no solution because there is no common ground.

 

Still, you backed down and allowed me the chance for victory. BTW it has been added to my sig. My victory has been noted for all to behold.

I find this extremely entertaining. <g> Knock yourself out, but don't get too happy. I'll confirm to anyone who asks that you stalemated me.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Supataft, that is the most pathetic signature I've ever seen.

Someone sounds jealous.

[Guest Kibagami]

Victory? Thor, who the hell let you out of the e-fed boards?

 

Acknowledging that you have fundamentally opposed viewpoints that can't be resolved in a debate does not constitute "beating" somebody in a "debate", especially when said debate hasn't even taken place. Jesus, from what I've read in the CE folder, I'd probably argue with Marney over anything else in the known universe, but this is just resoundingly stupid, even for someone of your admittedly low standards.

 

Oof.

 

S.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Y'all are taking this way too seriously.

[Guest Kibagami]

Nah, not really. We just like poking fun at Thor over on the SWF boards, and somebody posted a link to this thread in IRC...

 

Fun, excitement, ratings.

 

(Y)

 

S.

[Guest Chuck Woolery]

I agree. I was being an immature ass.. but seeing as we want to bring up writing talent...

 

 

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Join the SWF!

[Guest Some Guy]

Where did these people come from? That SWF deal?

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

Supataft, that is the most pathetic signature I've ever seen.

What?! The guy spins round! It's signature GOLD~!

[Guest SupaTaft]

Well Ken, my signature is better than yours because I have one and you dont.

 

Marney, you call them insults, I call them compliments. If you want to call me evil then go right ahead, for what you describe as evil sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. Call it a stalemate if you will, you stopped fighting, allowing me to step up and win the arguement. But don't feel bad, no one likes to admit defeat.

 

-Taft