450 posts IS a worse crime than wanting to kill us .
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Friday, May 22, 2009 14:59
VIEWED: 29463
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If there was any doubt that the Left is bat shit crazy, and cares purely for 1 thing and 1 thing only, there's no doubt any longer.
The Left's ridiculous, phony and 100% fabricated indignation over non-torture torture is nothing more than a purely partisan, politically driven side show intended for one purpose only - to get more power by demonizing anyone who stands in their way.
They don't CARE that Islamo fascists are going to try to kill 1000's more. That's what the Left wing leadership WANTS ! They want to cause crisis after crisis after crisis, and as Rahm Emanuel says, do what could not be done otherwise, w/regards to taking more and more power.
From illegal immigration, to gay marriages, to terrorist attacks, the Left is hoping and praying ( well, not literally, as they don't really buy into God™ ) to create such chaos in this country, they'll have no other choice than to remake it in their socialist Utopian template. 
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I'll ask again, since you keep avoiding the issue in the other thread...
Quote:
Since you insist that waterboarding isn't torture unless it's done to someone in uniform, let me put a scenario to you:
Say the Iranians have tried and convicted a 30-year-old Iranian-American woman - an American citizen not serving in the military or the diplomatic corps - on charges of spying. Now, since she's clearly NOT a soldier, nor wearing the uniform of any recognized armed forces, then they are clearly within their rights to waterboard her, are they not? I mean, they can use whatever means necessary to "break" her, since she is, in essence, a "terrorist" - at least in their eyes, and according to their law.
So you're totally okay with them doing this, yes?
By the way, her name is Roxana Saberi. She was a former contestant in a Miss North Dakota beauty pageant, holds two masters degrees, and is a graduate of Northwestern, with a degree in journalism.
Iran has a golden opportunity here. They can use the exact same methods that the U.S. has used, and we can't say shit about it, OR they can gain international favor by NOT torturing this girl, and then they end up looking more civilized than we do. Either way, it doesn't work out too well for us...
By the way, your thread title is misleading. "Interrogating" those who want to kill us isn't a worse crime than them wanting to kill us. TORTURING those who want to kill us actually IS a worse crime than them wanting to kill us.
Hell, right now I *may* WANT to kill you - that's not a crime at all. Some would even call it good common sense. I'm not saying I actually want to kill you, just pointing out that even if I did want to kill you, that's not a crime. Torturing me to find out if I wanted to kill you would be a crime, though.
And hey, it's not like the previous administration didn't use events to expand their power and grab more, so that's kind of a non-starter as an issue. Hell, Bush figured if he could get us neck-deep in the bullshit in Iraq, we'd HAVE to re-elect him, and then he'd be able to go on an even BIGGER power-grab.
And you were his loyal cheerleader all the way. Tell me, Rappy the Wonder Dog, did you borrow his darlin' little cheerleader outfit that he wore back in his school daze, and did you sniff the crotch of his panties before you put them on?
You've always been about power for the sake of power, and you've never cared one iota who gets killed along the way - be they "camel jockeys", "Achmeds", or anyone else you don't like because of the color of their skin.
Mike
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
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Hello,
Is it right to make a man feel like he's drowning?
That's one of the central questions of this issue, and when I try to figure out why there's any confusion over it, I can only come to one inescapable conclusion.
The people who advocate torture (whether or not they are bold enough to use the term) do so because they believe they are torturing someone IN SELF DEFENSE.
I came to this conclusion when I realized that I would never murder someone, but I would kill them IN SELF DEFENSE. As abominable as I consider murder to be, I consider killing under certain CIRCUMSTANCES to be JUSTIFIED.
Once I came to this shocking realization, I understood Auraptor and his ilk, who see no difference between TORTURE and ANY OTHER ACTION taken in SELF DEFENSE. The aspect of danger, to themselves or their countrymen, makes the act JUSTIFIED to their minds.
Where I realized the moral divide lay is in the directness and immediacy of the intervention. Killing someone who is trying to kill you is a direct and immediate action to stop a verifiably imminent danger.
This is the main thrust of the difference. The nearness and certainty of danger that narrows a panoply of options to just a critical few.
I believe that advocates of torture lack the ability to look deeper into a situation and recognize when danger needs must be met with the hard option, and when a softer sideways path will do more ably.
I also believe that advocates of torture lack the emotional maturity to recognize how torture debases and contaminates the torturer. It is even more dehumanizing to torture than to be tortured. It is a process that leaves a psychic wound on the processor.
Perhaps it is Hollywood programming that makes them believe that torture is the best way to get information that will save lives. Perhaps it is a sense of fear they themselves have of torture, that they believe they would surrender important details quickly and accurately if they themselves were tortured by an enemy.
I have come to the conclusion that advocates of torture are by-and-large misguided, and not necessarily evil. I mean, certainly there are sadists among them, but they can't all be sadists.
Does anyone else share these thoughts?
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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The guards at Abu Grhaib seemed to enjoy it... But I'm hoping they're exceptions.
Mostly I think that situation arose from a lack of training. They weren't made aware of Geneva Conventions, and psychological experiments have shown that prison situations can generate those kinds of abuses if the guards aren't trained in proper methodology.
Supposedly, there's something about being given complete power over people, and the dehumanizing circumstances of prison itself, that can bring out the worst in some of the people on duty.
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I think that in the past that the US executed people for doing the same thing to American prisoners quite telling.
Does that it might save lives make it right ?
Lets say I am fighting Americans...
Is it okay if I start waterboarding, etc my prisoners of the off chance I can learn something of your plans ? Maybe save some of my guys
Will AURaptor agree in that case, or will he scream bloody murder at that ?
Come on Rap, admit it is okay to waterboard US troops, or admit to being a hypocrite
" They don't hate America, they hate Americans " Homer Simpson
Lets party like its 1939
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Quote:On what do you base that belief?
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
This is the main thrust of the difference. The nearness and certainty of danger that narrows a panoply of options to just a critical few.
I believe that advocates of torture lack the ability to look deeper into a situation and recognize when danger needs must be met with the hard option, and when a softer sideways path will do more ably.
I also believe that advocates of torture lack the emotional maturity to recognize how torture debases and contaminates the torturer. It is even more dehumanizing to torture than to be tortured. It is a process that leaves a psychic wound on the processor.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Hello,
Essentially, it seems unlikely that a person with empathy could willfully and knowingly inflict pain and suffering without hurting themselves in the process.
There of course may be people without empathy, but then they are already suffering from mental and emotional damage.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Quote:Didn’t you just say that you could knowingly and willingly kill another person and be justified for it if you had reason to believe that your life was in danger? If there was reason to believe that a person had information that could save many lives but refused to talk, why wouldn’t you be just as justified in coercing that person? In one case, you say that killing a person to save another life is acceptable, but coercing a person to save many lives is not?
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,
Essentially, it seems unlikely that a person with empathy could willfully and knowingly inflict pain and suffering without hurting themselves in the process.
There of course may be people without empathy, but then they are already suffering from mental and emotional damage.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Hello,
This is the very argument I imagine advocates of torture to be making.
Incidentally, if I ever have to end someone, I expect to suffer psychic damage because of it. I expect it will bother me always.
The answer to your question, of course, is no. When someone is literally about to kill you or someone else, your panoply of options are shrunk to a precious few. All of them bad. You are left only to choose the least possible evil to prevent harm to yourself and others.
However, when you have a captured individual, your options are no longer painfully shrunk to a handful of bad choices. Torture would be a bad choice, not only for its dehumanizing effect, but also for its potential inaccuracy. There is no immediate death you are going to prevent with torture. The Jack Bauer model is a fallacy.
You can't rely on information to be accurate when it is obtained by torture. Torture does not motivate truth. It motivates a scheme to end the pain.
Further, the evidence of torture's lack of effectiveness is plain, in the face of prisoners who needed to be waterboarded dozens of times or more. Prisoners who were tortured for months on end. This does not evidence a critical piece of information needed right now to save a life right now.
Information, even from 'enhanced interrogation' is not unilaterally acted upon. It is compared and contrasted with other sources of intel. It is rated for potential accuracy after review by analysts. It is even compared to other information and statements from the same source. It is a long process, one of a sea of processes, that does not meet the imminent qualifier for the 'hard option.'
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Hey Anthony,
One aspect of authoritarian psychology is that the desire to punish the wicked can be even more important than self preservation. To them it's almost as if violence isn't really violence when it's perpetrated against "the evil doer." Authoritarians don't advocate war and torture to save American lives, so much as they see it as an opportunity to kick some righteous ass.
War is a moral imperative with them.
I see the defenders of torture beginning and ending with the premise, "the terrorists deserved it." If "the terrorists" deserve it, then there is no debate. It's an open and shut case. Torture's effectiveness as the just punishment for wickedness has a long and well respected history. If you disapprove of torture, it means you don't believe "the terrorists" deserve it and thus, you are a terrorist "symp," or you are a child, or you are hopelessly deluded.
So, I tend to see their arguments about "saving lives" as a pretext they reserve for the rest of us weaklings, but they all know what they're really talking about. They hear the dog whistles. They all share the righteous hatred of the evil doer. To them, we're nothing but appeasers, cowards and fools.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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