Toture

[Paper Hearts]

If my memory serves me then our revolutionaries did follow a, b and c and then when you consider that the ununiformed where mixed with the uniformed it served it's purpose but oh wait hold on the laws that we are talking about didn't exist back then, I guess that means that they where visionaries.

Main Entry: uniform

Function: noun

: dress of a distinctive design or fashion worn by members of a particular group and serving as a means of identification; broadly : distinctive or characteristic clothing.

This can be as simple as an arm band.

Oh btw please stop calling Middle Easterners, Arabs I'm positive that an Arabian wouldn't like it if you called a Iranian, Iraqi, Pakistani etc. etc. that. plus it is just racist and rude.

You'd be a bit behind in your understanding then, but I do remember when all that was going on. -Bush only alleged the Geneva Conventions did not apply, however it was later found incorrect and he was forced to abide by them. Here's an article from June Twenty Oaught Four on the matter: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3831399.stm

(BBC is the national news org of our greatest partner in the war)

Since that time the Bush administration is meant to be adhering to the protocols of GC. Recently although, he's attempting to reestablish his ideas and here's an article on just the opposition he's met from former members of his own administration and party (not taking into account opposed political parties, or international groups) in doing so:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6091400160.html

(the Washington Post has a majority conservative readership, based on information in their own polling)

I would also ask that you read the pieces by Seymour Hersh when you get a shot. Especially the last piece.

[Vater Araignee]

You'd be a bit behind in your understanding then, but I do remember when all that was going on.

:woot: You remember the revolutionary war? You just got my complete and total respect oh ancient one. :laughing :laughing :laughing :laughing :laughing :laughing

Interesting that the only time the name Bush has appeared in one of my posts during this thread is when I quoted you and forgot to truncate your post to the information that was relevant to what I had to say and now this post yet you keep arguing him to me.

I'm not arguing for Bush, I could give a rats ass about his opinions or any modern president for that matter because they are just puppets for the ones that are truly in charge. My posts are about Policy and law.

You want an actual argument for torture? No law involved?

The nice guy approach.

Wile nice and all will only get you information from the weakest of individual. I.E. STUPID. These people may be fanatical but most of them are not stupid and the ones that are don't have worth wile information.

The common police force detective approach.

It involves lying, badgering, and in my case sleep deprivation, not being allowed drink or to go to the lavatory ( the old if you have to piss you don't need water logic. I solved that by whipping it out and threatening to go on the table and got slapped for it, as you know that would have voided a confession even if I had given one) even being interrogated wile being obviously inebriated. Now I was just innocent and I most likely don't have 25% of the will power a true fanatic has.

Now lets go to real torture.

The detainee knows he can not escape and there is no hope of rescue, he also knows he is useless to you dead because you wont let him kill himself. So you are going to just slap him around with a rubber hose and apply a few volts to his prostate, maybe rip off a few finger nails. You do it for a few hours a day and he is a tough one but eventually he breaks down and tells you something. "Are you lying to me?" you ask, "No" is the reply "Are you sure? because if this turns out to be bad information you know I'm just going to add an hour a day". He insists it is true but it's not so you come back and add the hour and the next time he cracks and you threaten him with an additional hour, and he gives you the truth. Now you have to take into account that this wont work for a confession but it is intelligence that is sought after other wise they would have become a casualty or collateral damage.

It is a shame that death threats won't work on somebody that is prepared to die just to cripple you, but pain can still motivate them and only the most (imo) respectable personalities can withstand true torture.

Oh by the way according to the second part of the third definition of torture "or over refinement of a meaning or an argument" this is what our posts to each other have become.

And since you think torture is a bad thing...

[Steven]

I'll have to g back thur all of this later today but I dont remember any PRO BUSH arguments in this thread.

I also dont recall anyone making you out to be a flowery hippie.

I never saw anybody call for world peace and suggesting everybody get a puppy.

to me it seems that people have stuck pretty close to the argument.

Here's a new 1/2 Jack:

what are your thoughts on the numerous American COncentration camps wher we housed all the dirty japs? I used to live right near Santa ANita racetrack in california, its beautiful there, right at the foot of the mountains, all the rich beautiful people hang out there. And it was once a concentration camp. Would you consider that extreme, or immoral, or a form of human rights violation or??? and might it possibly reflect a harder stance on even just 'potential" enemies of our beloved america? And how much time and effort do we spend teaching our own children about our red white an blue conentration camps - since it should all be well documented and factual?

[Paper Hearts]

I'll have to g back thur all of this later today but I dont remember any PRO BUSH arguments in this thread.

I also dont recall anyone making you out to be a flowery hippie.

I never saw anybody call for world peace and suggesting everybody get a puppy.

to me it seems that people have stuck pretty close to the argument.

Here's a new 1/2 Jack:

what are your thoughts on the numerous American COncentration camps wher we housed all the dirty japs? I used to live right near Santa ANita racetrack in california, its beautiful there, right at the foot of the mountains, all the rich beautiful people hang out there. And it was once a concentration camp. Would you consider that extreme, or immoral, or a form of human rights violation or??? and might it possibly reflect a harder stance on even just 'potential" enemies of our beloved america? And how much time and effort do we spend teaching our own children about our red white an blue conentration camps - since it should all be well documented and factual?

To the contrary friend. I only sugested that you seem to have inexplicable opinions on the president--I did not say that you necessarily have opinions that 'favor' the president. I on the other hand, find that I have no place for that kind of dialogue (IE: I'm not going to pretend I'm at the 2004 RNC rally or on Rush Limbaugh, for people). On a personal level, I do find your thoughts interesting.

On Japanese American concentration camps durring WW2, I believe they show a disconnect. It's fairly unanimous that it was wrong.

Something interesting I've come across via BBC, related--1 in 4 Americans favor making people of Mideastern decent live in internment camps and 50% of Americans believe that people of Mideastern decent should be made to carry special identification that would 'prove their innocernce' and legitamacy. This information was based on polling done in the last month.

[Paper Hearts]

:woot: You remember the revolutionary war? You just got my complete and total respect oh ancient one. :laughing :laughing :laughing :laughing :laughing :laughing

Interesting that the only time the name Bush has appeared in one of my posts during this thread is when I quoted you and forgot to truncate your post to the information that was relevant to what I had to say and now this post yet you keep arguing him to me.

I'm not arguing for Bush, I could give a rats ass about his opinions or any modern president for that matter because they are just puppets for the ones that are truly in charge. My posts are about Policy and law.

You want an actual argument for torture? No law involved?

The nice guy approach.

Wile nice and all will only get you information from the weakest of individual. I.E. STUPID. These people may be fanatical but most of them are not stupid and the ones that are don't have worth wile information.

The common police force detective approach.

It involves lying, badgering, and in my case sleep deprivation, not being allowed drink or to go to the lavatory ( the old if you have to piss you don't need water logic. I solved that by whipping it out and threatening to go on the table and got slapped for it, as you know that would have voided a confession even if I had given one) even being interrogated wile being obviously inebriated. Now I was just innocent and I most likely don't have 25% of the will power a true fanatic has.

Now lets go to real torture.

The detainee knows he can not escape and there is no hope of rescue, he also knows he is useless to you dead because you wont let him kill himself. So you are going to just slap him around with a rubber hose and apply a few volts to his prostate, maybe rip off a few finger nails. You do it for a few hours a day and he is a tough one but eventually he breaks down and tells you something. "Are you lying to me?" you ask, "No" is the reply "Are you sure? because if this turns out to be bad information you know I'm just going to add an hour a day". He insists it is true but it's not so you come back and add the hour and the next time he cracks and you threaten him with an additional hour, and he gives you the truth. Now you have to take into account that this wont work for a confession but it is intelligence that is sought after other wise they would have become a casualty or collateral damage.

It is a shame that death threats won't work on somebody that is prepared to die just to cripple you, but pain can still motivate them and only the most (imo) respectable personalities can withstand true torture.

Oh by the way according to the second part of the third definition of torture "or over refinement of a meaning or an argument" this is what our posts to each other have become.

And since you think torture is a bad thing...

You're assuming a bit that the state directed torture always takes place for information gathering purposes which has been shown as not the case. You're also assuming a bit that all people tortured are criminal, which has also been shown not the case. And it's also true that if you torture someone they'll tell you anything you want to hear and this is one reason why persuasion was the standard for interrogation rather than coercion, one reason why it's considered more successfull. No true "terrorist" in cases relavant to the war is going to provide any information through torture that they wouldn't through persuasion--they don't care what happens to their physical bodies, they'll blow themselves up, even. And, more often than through persuasion, what you gain through coercion is false because the person just wants you to stop torturing them, they'll tell you they've fucked their mother if that works for you...and if the issue is really so expediant, there's no time to follow false leads.

[FarrIL]

As much as these people are believed to be criminals, and as much as they may have committed crime after crime or killed one person after another....

.... They're still people.

People break under stress when they feel they've had enough. However, I feel it would be best to GAIN someone's trust and have them spill on their own accord, rather than bring them near death before they spill something that may not be true. People say things that arent completely true (( or false )) under pressure. I feel it'd be best to coax it out of them (( kill them with kindness, sort of )) rather than beat the living sh*t out of them beforehand.

As evil as they may seem, they are still people. While I do believe in "Eye for an eye", let them calmly spill the truth on their own, then decide the punishment.

If they refuse to say anything..... they'll break eventually in some way or another. But to immediately jump into torturing a criminal or terrorist into confession isnt the wisest thing to do.

[pharoh]

As much as these people are believed to be criminals, and as much as they may have committed crime after crime or killed one person after another....

.... They're still people.

People break under stress when they feel they've had enough. However, I feel it would be best to GAIN someone's trust and have them spill on their own accord, rather than bring them near death before they spill something that may not be true. People say things that arent completely true (( or false )) under pressure. I feel it'd be best to coax it out of them (( kill them with kindness, sort of )) rather than beat the living sh*t out of them beforehand.

As evil as they may seem, they are still people. While I do believe in "Eye for an eye", let them calmly spill the truth on their own, then decide the punishment.

If they refuse to say anything..... they'll break eventually in some way or another. But to immediately jump into torturing a criminal or terrorist into confession isnt the wisest thing to do.

When there is life at stake you cannot wait. I wouldn't waste time getting thier trust. Screw that be the better person crap. When innocents are in danger and the other person won't talk....you make them talk. Period.

And I think the Geneva convention is crap to, but thats another subject for another time

[phee]

Would you torture innocents to save innocents?

[pharoh]

Would you torture innocents to save innocents?

Depends on the amount of people I was saving vs the amount I was torturing. If it was 1 person for one life, then no....if it was one life for 100? Yes. I am intrested in the greater good.

[Paper Hearts]

Would you torture innocents to save innocents?

It's not been shown to save innocents at all, it's actually shown the opposite. Bush 'claims' a justification for torture in the thwarting of a planned attack and in the explanation I've heard him give, then goes on with a string of words that don't actually form a sentence or even remind one of anything that you can compare to anything sensible, and finally concludes his vocal spasm with "Great Britain". -Meanwhile, the British themselves oppose torture, period(.) I'm not sure what sort of 'dogs' torture their prisoners but certainly GB has no agenda for that. Bush has completely mischaracterized that situation. Anyway, for over 40 years we lived with the threat of 30,000 Soviet nuclear missles...ask someone who lived through Bay of Pigs if that was a large and devastating threat or not. But the Cold War was approached with tactics more diplomatic than hostile and it's on large part due to that, that Earth is not experiencing nuclear winter, presently. It's unlikely that the world will ever be rid of groups that use terrorist style attacks or just Islamic militants who use terrorism, even more so unlikely given the character of Bush Administration handling of this situation combined with the character of these terrorist groups--and this has been an aspect of the argument of republicans that oppose Bush's torture plans, not to mention democrats. More importantly, it's also been an aspect of decisions made against the President's philosophy in our courts.

The Geneva Conventions treaties have not been too vague for any other signatory country through any other war nor any other president through 60 years. What's more, it's been explained to Bush how the Geneva Conventions apply directly to this war, by our justice dept. This is all just another of the Bush administration's attempts to redefine torture to erode prisoners' rights. And it's dishonorable.

Not only that, but if you're having a war with the goal of changing the philosophy of "Islamic extremists" then you'll need to take a philosophy different than their own (at the very least) through your military actions, otherwise you teach nothing but their philosophy is acceptable. 'Eye-for-an-eye' has never been successfull; just ask Isreal if they've had any luck with decreasing recruitment to Islamic militant groups with it through...actually several thousand years (because the fighting really goes back a long time)--on the other hand, approaches cognizant of the actual intended goal of the war (luring people away from a culture that creates "radical Islamists") can list some accomplishments.

[Paper Hearts]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

(See first line)

"Treated humanely" "outrages upon personal dignity" "cruel, inhuman or degrading": topics that the president of the United States is yet unclear on-

[Vater Araignee]

You're assuming a bit that the state directed torture always takes place for information gathering purposes which has been shown as not the case. You're also assuming a bit that all people tortured are criminal, which has also been shown not the case. And it's also true that if you torture someone they'll tell you anything you want to hear and this is one reason why persuasion was the standard for interrogation rather than coercion, one reason why it's considered more successfull. No true "terrorist" in cases relavant to the war is going to provide any information through torture that they wouldn't through persuasion--they don't care what happens to their physical bodies, they'll blow themselves up, even. And, more often than through persuasion, what you gain through coercion is false because the person just wants you to stop torturing them, they'll tell you they've fucked their mother if that works for you...and if the issue is really so expediant, there's no time to follow false leads.

Show me where I make an assumption about what the "state directed torture" is for. You cant because I didn't and I know that our government contains idiots conservative and liberal.

Show me where I make an assumption about the people that are being interrogated. You can't because I was speaking in hypotheticals.

Show me evidence where the threat of more torture for lying didn't eventually work to prevent lies.

Show me a study by a proponent of torture before the did the study and came out and opponent after.

Show me evidence that proves that there are innocents there. No just the say so of a few bleeding hearts.

And yes they will die for their cause but you seem to forget that relentless on going agony and death are two completely different things.

I'm thinking that maybe we should include the use of Sodium Pentothal in this conversation oh no never mind it is used in mega doses as stage one for lethal injection in thirty-seven states so we don't legally use it for its psychiatric purpose any more because that would fall into the category of torture I advocate, not the category of interrogation tactics you oppose.

they'll tell you they've fucked their mother if that works for you...and if the issue is really so expediant, there's no time to follow false leads.

False Analogy.

You are assuming that a false admission of guilt is the same as, saying that there are papers hidden under the floor board of yadada or our camp was at blah blah or or or or et nauseum.

If they tell you where the secret base is you wouldn't follow up?

Oh no , I'm sorry you wouldn't because the information was obtained by the use of torture so in your mind it must automatically be false. <--- based solely on your post this is a sure bet.

ONE THAT I WOULD LOSE.

[Vater Araignee]

When there is life at stake you cannot wait. I wouldn't waste time getting thier trust. Screw that be the better person crap. When innocents are in danger and the other person won't talk....you make them talk. Period.

And I think the Geneva convention is crap to, but thats another subject for another time

Yes it is. Remember what the GOONS did to our men in WWII? They claimed to adhear to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

(See first line)

Now read the paragraph following Modern waterboarding.

[Paper Hearts]

In response to Vater:

How can we, the United States, torture? Torture is especialy wrong when we don't know if someone is guilty or not. I understand that there is a genuine need for gleaning information from certain captives but it seems highly unlikely that with such suddenness the world has finally become a dangerous place and thus we need to change our most elementary principals, associated. The world has been dangerous from the start.

We don't really even have a process for categorizing detainees by threat level they pose, other than a system of different uniforms that we issue to them based solely on how belligerent they act. This is largely due to the fact that terrorists can't be plucked from "battlefields" because they don't fight from battlefields and quite traditionally, they do not surrender (as so many of our (related) prisonors have). Instead, terrorist acts are a set of tactics which aren't tactically possible from a place of 'battle'.

Meanwhile, Bush's illegal warrantless program has abducted innocent people (innocent by our legal standards) almost literally from the street, for a list of phone calls or internet sites visited or traveling records, or heritage, whisked them off to an unknown location, secret to all including their families, held them and tortured them for over a year (in some cases) and then unceremoniously released them or stuck them in a military run prison camp for lack of condemning evidence found against them. And we've also tortured people for no intelligence purposes stated, by the Bush plan. -And some of these people have been citizens of the United States or it's allies.

If a believed member of a "cell" is discovered, and we capture this person, then that has occured through an investigative system we've necessarily geared towards the eventual bringing of justice (in this case, the justice of the member captured or the justice of potential subsequent captives, related, are relevant)--if we capture them on our soil they are subject to our laws, while on foreign soil they are subject to international accords we've agreed to and that our Supreme Court has ruled must be abided by, time and again, and has done so (essentially) because the very adoption of such accords was motivated by a need to bring legitimacy to the concept of international crimes and beyond that, with the Supreme Court's use of our Constitution, the idea of crime itself.

To not uphold such standards undermines the entire system to which the investigation would belong and through that, the social model, purposes and customs of the nation conducting the investigation, which thereby defeats the existential establishment of the nation as an individual among nations, itself.

May I remind you that as a result of a failure to grasp these simple concepts by the Bush administration it is that not a single prisoner held at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay prisons is yet to be tried? And this is because our Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, together, have yet to meet so many violations to their basic guidelines by a member attempting to apply the basics contained in both, for practical purposes...and after all, what else are these 'legal' documents for if not practical purpose? It's also because we have a president who instead of checking to find out if his explanations for the statutes contained in those documents were the correct interpretations, acted unilaterally and even worse, covertly from all other branches of our government, a government of it's people. And now, as if to punish our government (in essence, our people and including those troops in the war) for finding his methods unsound, Bush will now attempt to halt the war's intelligence program all together, and do so in the name of security. Bravo.

[Vater Araignee]

Toture, Where do -->"you"<--- stand?

[Paper Hearts]

Toture, Where do -->"you"<--- stand?

Point well taken.

[Vater Araignee]

I want you to try something.

Put aside you anti bush sentiment hell take 99.9% of the government out of the equation.

Think about the people that died.

Think about their husbands, wives and children, their fathers, mothers, brother and sisters.

Think about all the homeless people that died because of charitable contributions went to victims and rescuers instead of them.

Dwell on this.

I took a test to determine how well I would protect my family from an intruder.

I failed miserably. My assessment was "Hot headed / Stupidly heroic"

I then received a lecture and came away with two pieces of information.

1. A thinking person is more dangerous then a reacting one. <--- easy to understand at the time.

2. You must protect yourself to protect your family. <--- it took me a wile to completely understand this.

Done?

Now consider this scenario.

You have two men physically identical for all intents and prepossess.

in order to save 50 innocent people one of these men has to die but nobody but "the one" can tell you which one.

do you

a. kill neither and let 50 innocents die?

b. pick one at random and hope you got the right one and risk 51 innocent people dying?

c. kill them both so that only 1 innocent dies?

d. resort to torture to up your odds of picking the correct one?

Don't think in ideologies if I used my own for this equation then I would kill them both because it is more efficient.

Now where do you stand?

Hell don't even bother to tell me, keep it to yourself but be brutally honest with yourself.

Hey what do ya know? I picked the correct homonym this time dying.

[Paper Hearts]

I won't begin to speculate yet on Bush's motivations other than to put that I am inclined to believe that his actions were (are) made from (an albeit, perverted) sense of patriotic duty.

If the president's methods truly save lives of Americans or those of it's allies (as of yet, unproved by the president) never comes into the picture for me. Most notably because his actions represent such egregious violations of things held as "American", while at the same time, his actions have commenced and been directed from the highest office of the United States.

And I would point out that we normally don't let criminals off the hook just because they 'meant well' or were either ignorant to or in disagreement with the laws governing our society. Here, I would list Al Qaeda's disagreement with our version of culture as the entire catalyst of the war. Thus, President Bush's philosophy destroys the integrity of the war as a war.

A analogy from a friend of mine:

If baby Hitler was stuck in a cage and it was positive that it was the baby Hitler in that cage, and the only way you could reach baby Hitler that would have a chance at killing him, through his cage, was with your cock, would you rape a baby to (eventually) save millions of innocent lives?

Well, I wouldn't. But let me point out that we have more than one option for fighting terrorism. In essence, we do not have to fuck the baby Hitler. Torture is not our only option, and besides, according to what is "American" (which is extremely relevant in this war, all wars we fight) torture is always wrong. And so, by the way, is the legally meritless invasion of someone's privacy.

As succinctly as possible, it doesn't protect America to destroy the foundations of it's personality, it does the opposite, it does America a disservice. And it's impossible to become 'wrong' and arrive at a 'right'. It would be like our Constitution reading 'We hold these truths to be self evident except when we fear our lives are at stake, at which point we tear this useless piece of paper up and set it ablaze'.

[Shade Everdark]

I want you to try something.

Put aside you anti bush sentiment hell take 99.9% of the government out of the equation.

Think about the people that died.

Think about their husbands, wives and children, their fathers, mothers, brother and sisters.

Think about all the homeless people that died because of charitable contributions went to victims and rescuers instead of them.

Dwell on this.

I took a test to determine how well I would protect my family from an intruder.

I failed miserably. My assessment was "Hot headed / Stupidly heroic"

I then received a lecture and came away with two pieces of information.

1. A thinking person is more dangerous then a reacting one. <--- easy to understand at the time.

2. You must protect yourself to protect your family. <--- it took me a wile to completely understand this.

This is an argumentum ad misericordiam, an appeal to pity. Quite frankly, whether those people died or not is irrelevant to our legal authority or our 'right' to torture others. Similarly, it also does not matter how many people died, vis a vis our legal and moral right to torture others. It is no more right for us to waterboard an Afghani or Iraqi prisoner than it was for the Japanese to submit Philippine and US soldiers to the Bataan Death March. The issue here is not debate over the extent of what we're doing, the debate is over what we're doing to begin with. We are consciously stripping away the very basic human dignity (I don't care how many people they've killed, they are still people themselves) of a person, in order to get something we want. Whether that something is intelligence, or the sadistic, malicious satisfaction of watching someone else suffer, I'll leave to everyone else to decide. The 3,000 people that died five years ago doesn't change that. The 3,000 soldiers who've died in Iraq since then doesn't change that, either.

In my mind, we've already lost; the terrorists have beaten us. We've sacrificed the ideal America for a pale mockery of it. We've squandered our moral purse, spilled out all the global goodwill we had into the dirt. These pitiful little jihad groups aren't going to destroy civilization, as some pundits would scare us into believing. They aren't even going to be able to destroy America. They don't have a standing army, they don't have transports, and they don't have any sorts of powerful nuclear weapons, only little dirty bombs, which wouldn't even wipe out a relatively small town. They aren't going to be able to kill us all; not even a sizable fraction of us. The only thing they can do is cause us to abandon everything we hold dear, in favor of revenge and the ephemeral illusion of safety. By that measure, they've succeeded admirably.

On 11 September 2001, the United States was forced to stare into the abyss. As Nietzsche forewarned, the monster we fought turned us into monsters ourselves, for perhaps we gazed too long into that abyss, gave it time to stare back.

[phee]

Well stated

[Paper Hearts]

I suppose that our Constitution is actually a malleable document, by design. However, becoming a country where you are not truly innocent until proven guilty, becoming a country where you have no right to privacy, and becoming a country where you are subject to cruel and unusual treatment, would represent far too fundamental changes. And I don't see how an American gives up fundamental freedoms and rights out of fear, let alone an American president. As president, if a person working for our government as an interrogator told me that they needed to torture to do their job, my response would be to initiate a full scale investigation to find out what was so wrong with the agency that they belong to that they perceive that they need to circumvent the very nation of their employment in order to carry out what are actually mundane, day-to-day, basic operations.

Secondly, if it was ever decided that invading privacy, torture and/or abduction were the right things to do, how do you begin to legislate those things using our Constitution as a basis? -Because it's blatantly obvious that those things run contrary to every idea our Constitution was founded on.

[Vater Araignee]

This is an argumentum ad misericordiam, an appeal to pity. Quite frankly, whether those people died or not is irrelevant to our legal authority or our 'right' to torture others. Similarly, it also does not matter how many people died, vis a vis our legal and moral right to torture others. It is no more right for us to waterboard an Afghani or Iraqi prisoner than it was for the Japanese to submit Philippine and US soldiers to the Bataan Death March. The issue here is not debate over the extent of what we're doing, the debate is over what we're doing to begin with. We are consciously stripping away the very basic human dignity (I don't care how many people they've killed, they are still people themselves) of a person, in order to get something we want. Whether that something is intelligence, or the sadistic, malicious satisfaction of watching someone else suffer, I'll leave to everyone else to decide. The 3,000 people that died five years ago doesn't change that. The 3,000 soldiers who've died in Iraq since then doesn't change that, either.

In my mind, we've already lost; the terrorists have beaten us. We've sacrificed the ideal America for a pale mockery of it. We've squandered our moral purse, spilled out all the global goodwill we had into the dirt. These pitiful little jihad groups aren't going to destroy civilization, as some pundits would scare us into believing. They aren't even going to be able to destroy America. They don't have a standing army, they don't have transports, and they don't have any sorts of powerful nuclear weapons, only little dirty bombs, which wouldn't even wipe out a relatively small town. They aren't going to be able to kill us all; not even a sizable fraction of us. The only thing they can do is cause us to abandon everything we hold dear, in favor of revenge and the ephemeral illusion of safety. By that measure, they've succeeded admirably.

On 11 September 2001, the United States was forced to stare into the abyss. As Nietzsche forewarned, the monster we fought turned us into monsters ourselves, for perhaps we gazed too long into that abyss, gave it time to stare back.

This is an argumentum ad misericordiam, an appeal to pity. Quite frankly, whether those people died or not is irrelevant to our legal authority or our 'right' to torture others. Similarly, it also does not matter how many people died, vis a vis our legal and moral right to torture others.

Might I point out that this thread is called "Toture , Where do you stand?" so it can go in any direction and that post was not an argument it was a request to put aside the "law" and "breaking of it" and ask ones self if there is a situation where it is Toture acceptable. Sometimes you HAVE to appeal to human nature which by the way is mostly contrary to law.

Get it?

Got it?

Thought not!

But whether you understand that or not, does not change the fact that it was not an argument.

Need I torture your attempt to debase my legitimate post and there for my character some more?

[Shade Everdark]

Might I point out that this thread is called "Toture , Where do you stand?" so it can go in any direction and that post was not an argument it was a request to put aside the "law" and "breaking of it" and ask ones self if there is a situation where it is Toture acceptable. Sometimes you HAVE to appeal to human nature which by the way is mostly contrary to law.

Get it?

Got it?

Thought not!

But whether you understand that or not, does not change the fact that it was not an argument.

Need I torture your attempt to debase my legitimate post and there for my character some more?

Your post was quite legitimate, which was why I responded to it. To say it was legitimate, however, does not make it right, or correct. To put aside the law in favor of appealing to human nautre is just what this administration appears to be doing, and that I do not condone. Appealing to human nature over the law in situations like these is a recipe for disaster because, as you say, human nature in such situations tends to be contrary.

And, I'm sorry, appealing to our sense of pity appears to have been exactly what you were doing. I could certainly be mistaken in your motives, conscious or otherwise, but from my perspective, that is exactly how it reflects in my eyes.

As for your character, I made no reference to your character, whether to debase or exalt it. I posited a very valid criticism of your argument, based on the fact that you were using a logical fallacy. Your character, frankly, had no place in it.

Though, I must say...I do find it telling that you not only think you are able to torture an inanimate object, but also threaten to do so, should I respond. (And yes, I'm aware that it is almost certainly humor, which is why this last paragraph is posted in kind. If it happens to be serious, well...that's a whole different kettle of fish. Or terrorists. Or whatever.)

[Vater Araignee]

Though, I must say...I do find it telling that you not only think you are able to torture an inanimate object, but also threaten to do so, should I respond. (And yes, I'm aware that it is almost certainly humor, which is why this last paragraph is posted in kind. If it happens to be serious, well...that's a whole different kettle of fish. Or terrorists. Or whatever.)

Main Entry: 1tor·ture

Pronunciation: 'tor-ch&r

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle French, from Old 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

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 over refinement of a meaning or an argument : STRAINING

Wile I'm defining, this would technically mean that jail is torture.

Your post was quite legitimate, which was why I responded to it. To say it was legitimate, however, does not make it right, or correct. To put aside the law in favor of appealing to human nature is just what this administration appears to be doing, and that I do not condone. Appealing to human nature over the law in situations like these is a recipe for disaster because, as you say, human nature in such situations tends to be contrary.

And, I'm sorry, appealing to our sense of pity appears to have been exactly what you were doing. I could certainly be mistaken in your motives, conscious or otherwise, but from my perspective, that is exactly how it reflects in my eyes.

As for your character, I made no reference to your character, whether to debase or exalt it. I posited a very valid criticism of your argument, based on the fact that you were using a logical fallacy. Your character, frankly, had no place in it.

I was not arguing law in fact as stated I was not arguing(see below) at all. I was making a request for him, any one in fact, to ask them selves "Do I have it in me?"

You see I feel that if there is one thing that puts me above "Right wing Wackos" and "Left wing Lunatics" and "Mr. Spock" Is my ability desire to view a subject from as many possible view points as possible.

Now you may note that I said

Don't think in ideologies if I used my own for this equation then I would kill them both because it is more efficient.

You see if I used cold hard logic as a deciding factor then they are both dead. I would committed 1 slaying and 1 murder in the name of logical efficiency and according to logic the murder is ok because it saved 50. However moralistically I must torture so that I can save 51 lives and in order to properly incite morals pity must be involved.

And wile yes it technically was an argument (2b : discourse intended to persuade) intended to make one see it in them selves, it certainly was not an argument (2a : a reason given in proof or rebuttal) as defined by your statement.

and to jump out of what I was trying to get across and to use my argument by your definition... and do a partial jack.

Law is not always right.

Should my wife go to jail because she cut her hair without my permission?

In Rochester, Michigan, the law is that anyone bathing in public (ie swimming) must have the bathing suit inspected by a police officer.

In Michigan, married couples must live together or be imprisoned.

In Michigan, it is against the law for a lady to lift her skirt more than 6 inches while walking through a mud puddle.

Single guys and gals caught in the act of sex (this can include a police officer walking into an open front door and into a bedroom) in Michigan can be fined as much as $5,000, and they could be sentenced to as many as five years in prison.

Michigan law prescribes five years in prison for a man who engages "in acts of gross indecency, either in public or private." This includes mutual masturbation by two men or the simple act of solitary masturbation.

Should I got to jail because I like going down on my wife?

Now I know that these laws are typically ignored but they are still laws (remember Tupac?) and to any "law thumper" those that commit sodomy (anal or oral copulation with a member of the same or opposite sex) should be fined and imprisoned so if your going to yell "THE LAW THE LAW THE LAW" then you should not pick and choose.

One last thing.

Maybe not to you, but to me accusing me of using any sort of false logic is a slat on the slate of my character.

edit due to terrible grammar and it is still not good.

[Paper Hearts]

All of the laws you cited are absolutely unconstitutional and you seem to feel they are wrong, as well, so it doesn't defend nationally sanctioning torture, in other words, to list these things. It was obviously assumed that all of the laws you've listed fall under Amendment 10, the Rights Reserved to States: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. -But It would be hilarious to think that any of those laws you've listed, if they were attempted to be implemented today, would not see a federal court because they're not really in that “gray area”, like speed limits are or something.

We have these pieces of paper...and albeit they're just paper; they are just what we have. We have had laws that were wrong, and we still have laws that are wrong (dually noted). -But the trend in our laws has sort of pivoted on the preamble to our Constitution and on the Bill of Rights. There has been opportunities all along when we could have gone in a different direction, reproaching the preamble and first 10 amendments to that, but really, you can't go very far along on any other route before it becomes essential that we draft and ratify a new piece of paper.

According to our current law, we're innocent until proven guilty, and if we have been found guilty, we're not meant to endure cruel and unusual punishment. In fact, in most cases, we've actually designed our penal system towards some level of convalescence. Be that as it may, there are many parts of prison that could be called torture (dually noted here as well), but we've reviewed the system time and again to insure that methods were not cruel or unusual. Definitely, we've decided that torturing a 'suspect', for what ever reason infringes on that suspect's presumed innocence, at any rate.

All right, but these people in question are citizens of other countries and they have been captured on land not belonging to us. -Well, we have signed treaties for handling of international detainees and I feel very comfortable estimating, that since it is that they are ‘treaties’, after all, that in order to review any statute they contain, whether to gain clarifications or make new definitions, every other signatory nation involved with those treaties would need to be involved as equal partners in those reviews.

In the mean time, our federal courts, on two separate occasions: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush, have decided that the Geneva conventions do apply and accepting that, thus, any act against a detainee designed to inflict any amount of physical or mental injury what so ever, for whatever reason, and which does 'not' amount to torture, is illegal.

Here, it's also important to put that the United States has incorporated several of the Geneva Conventions prohibitions regarding treatment of persons in custody as domestic law, including the War Crimes Act, which makes it an internal criminal offense for any American military personnel to commit war crimes as defined by the Geneva Conventions, in addition to their being subject to international laws and punishments (agreed to) for war crimes. Also included in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which makes it punishable by court martial for US military personnel to mistreat prisoners (as defined by the Geneva Conventions). We also have a federal anti-torture statute and a Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act which (relevantly) would cover FBI, CIA and civilian interrogators, including contractors, which (also) makes it a federal crime to torture any prisoner, outside of the United States. Upon incorporating these things the United States reported to the Committee Against Torture that: “Every act of torture within the meaning of the Convention is illegal under existing federal and state law, and any individual who commits such an act is subject to penal sanctions as specified in criminal statutes. Such prosecutions do in fact occur in appropriate circumstances. Torture cannot be justified by exceptional circumstances, nor can it be excused on the basis of an order from a superior officer. “ .

So, while it’s fine for you to feel a personal justification and acceptance of torture, in order to make your views public law, you’ll need to draft and ratify a completely new Constitution by this point, and you’ll need also withdraw from the Geneva Conventions, all together; I don't see how you get anything contrary through without those measures.

And naturally, it was my intention that this topic discussed the issue in relation to current events.