Good torture, bad torture

[Syzygys]

I reject the conclusion that my immoral actions would actually promote the survival of my kids in any way.

That is your family's problem, not mine. Talk to your wife about it.

that torture is any more effective than other,

First, nobody said so, second, this thread is not about effectiveness, but morality. Really not that hard to understand. If you can make the kidnapper talking by tickling him, tickle away, but a few shots to the knees are usually better...

If you have trouble with that scenario, in war there are plenty of real life events when if you get the military info in time, you can save your manpower.

Torture is always war on innocent people.

Or not. What if torture is part of the punishment? They just found a woman in indian hung from a tree after being gangraped. Torture sounds like a fine punishment for such an act, ask any woman...

They get 3 hots and a cot and can watch all those TV dramas you think reflect reality all day long.

Not everybody, this is not Finland. Some of them don't even have access to other prisoners...

 

[Syzygys]

There is no way to torture morally.

Sure there is. Your responses have been a moral torture to me...

Also, I would rather been tortured than killed, but that is just me...

 

[Syzygys]

It might help if we knew exactly what torture is legally defined as...

I don't care for lega; definition, I know torture when I see one.

I read prisoners testimonies, it sounded like torture. Specially people on death row... Texas is particulary nasty with its prisoners... The guy was begging to be executed, it was a salvation for him....

 

[billvon]

What do I get? Of course your situation wasn't realistic not even theoretically

That's the point. Neither was yours.

 

[Beryl]

America used to win every war it started... oops, was involved in.
Now, they're being thrown out of every place they go. They'll call it a 'tactical withdrawal", of course.

Reason being, of course, that now that they've decided to be nice and moral about all their conflicts, they lose them all..

Wait, do you live in a reality where America doesn't torture people?

 

[Beryl]

Szygys -

I confess I've had a little trouble following the train of your thoughts, but:

1) You're right, it is a bit beside the point to talk about whether or not torture is an effective means of getting information. It is immoral either way.

2) It is even more beside the point to talk about whether or not any of us would torture someone if we were convinced that they had kidnapped our children and our children would die if we didn't find them immediately. People will often do things out of desperation to save a loved one which they know to be morally wrong. There is something of an interesting topic of conversation in that - there is the question of how forgivable such actions are, as well as the general reality of never knowing how we will react to a situation if we are in it... But I don't see how it's evidence that torture is ever "good".

 

[Grumpy]

Syzygys

That is your family's problem, not mine. Talk to your wife about it.

Kind of hard to do when she's been dead probably for longer than you've been alive, asshole.

First, nobody said so, second, this thread is not about effectiveness, but morality

It is immoral to use a felonious technique that doesn't even work and has such abuse potential, especially as there is no valid evidence the one you seek to assault is guilty. Again, you can't be a little bit pregnant, or just a little bit of an evil, torturing asshole. Is that definitive enough for you, Syssy?

If you have trouble with that scenario, in war there are plenty of real life events when if you get the military info in time, you can save your manpower.

Illuminate us as to your extensive experience in war. I served in Vietnam(two tours), where men were prosecuted for war crimes involving torture several times. One particularly comes to mind. An intelligence agent(CIA probably)threw four Viet Cong officers out of a helicopter, one by one. He didn't ask the first one anything, he asked the second one question and the officer answered extensively and in detail. He threw him out anyway. The other two went in similar manner. When asked at his trial why he tossed them out anyway he said that nothing he had ever got by torture turned out to be true. He was hard core, yet he knew what you don't. Never saw it myself, you could get more info with a cigarette and a chocolate bar than you could with a club, except from the hardcore Viet Cong, them you never got anything from that could be trusted no matter what you did(so why become a criminal yourself for no gain, it's stupid). Nor did you dare act on anything they did say. You simply speak from your anal orifice, sloppily. The South Vietnamese would give us a lot of intel just by talking to them like human beings, but that would quickly change if folks like you started getting their freak on with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. It might make you feel better, give you a sense of satisfaction, inflict great harm on anyone you didn't like but the intel well would go dry instantly, leaving you blind and unable to trust any information you beat out of anyone. Torture is not only immoral, it is stupid and extremely short sighted. Those who do know something about the subject agree with that assessment, only know-nothing cowboys like Cheney and Bush think the world is like an episode of 24(a world view many on the Right share, but they think tax cuts create jobs, so go figure).

I don't care for lega; definition, I know torture when I see one.

You know nothing, evidently. Were you to act in the way you have said is right, you would soon be removed from society and hopefully the gene pool. It evidently needs some cleaning.

I read prisoners testimonies, it sounded like torture

Not according to the legal definition, which I posted and you said was irrelevant. Prison is punishment for crimes committed. While there are basics for treatment in prison they do not include a right to be comfortable, socially active and your happiness is not a concern. But it does not fit the definition of torture(being tortured by your own conscience for your crime or suffering lack of comfort and confinement because of getting caught are your own fault, not the prison's).

Specially people on death row... Texas is particulary nasty with its prisoners... The guy was begging to be executed, it was a salvation for him....

That's why the death penalty should not be used. Someone who suffers because of the crime they committed should be kept alive, unmolested and healthy, not given a way out of their own internal misery for their crime(or at least the discomfort and confinement their crimes earned them). And with the death penalty the state is taking a chance of making an irreparable moral mistake by executing an innocent man(that doesn't bother most Texans, but they are deep Right Wing yahoo territory, I don't think the majority of them have morals), Texas has executed men they KNEW were innocent. Rick Perry said he has lost no sleep over the fact, or for any of the post mortem exonerations or any of the several death row inmates that are provably innocent right now. Rick has no moral compass, Ooops!

Grumpy

 

[iceaura]

Follow-up question:

Is morality a suicide pact?

No. Morality is hard won wisdom specifically designed to protect people from the common temptations in pressure situations. It is the opposite of a suicide pact – it helps you avoid destroying yourself and your family and your community by ultimately disastrous actions that often attract in the short term.

hey moral choice for you. Which country is more evil:

a/ Torture for good reasons, but doesn't do wars.
b/ No torture, but does illegal conquering wars.

Let’s say the country that does both – with the same justification, from the same people, btw – would be the most evil of all. Right?

The thing about stating you're against torture, is that any captured enemy is not going to respect you at all. If they know you won't torture them, they won't tell you a damned thing.

That is false. According to the pros, and the historical record, on average you get more actual information (cleaned of noise, complete and accurate) from competent interrogation.
What you get from torture is larded with memory lapses and confusions, false confessions and similar invention, confirmation of whatever presumptions and biases you reveal in your questioning regardless of their accuracy, and so forth.
Which brings up a side point: it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that ain’t so. As a matter of psychological fact, people tend to believe what they think they’ve tortured from someone, suspending their normal skepticism. So torturers tend to be more easily fooled than standard interrogators – by dupes planted with false info, by victims perceiving and telling them what they want to hear, by desperate victims who have no info inventing plausible crap. This subverting of good intelligence is a major cost of torture operations.
The opportunity cost is much larger, of course - if information were ever the goal, which it is not, usually.

Really not that hard to understand. If you can make the kidnapper talking by tickling him, tickle away, but a few shots to the knees are usually better...

If you have trouble with that scenario, in war there are plenty of real life events when if you get the military info in time, you can save your manpower.

Always with the Hollywood stuff. You have presented no real life examples at all. But a lot of torture happens in real life – what are we to conclude, then?

Torture is always war on innocent people.
Or not. What if torture is part of the punishment? They just found a woman in indian hung from a tree after being gangraped. Torture sounds like a fine punishment for such an act, ask any woman...

Interesting timing – the several young men confessed and convicted of the brutal, near fatal gang rape of the Central Park jogger in New York were released not too long ago, after years in jail. They were innocent. Hundreds of others like them have been released from US prisons, innocent.

Try this: we’ll allow torture as punishment under one condition – if the victim turns out to have been innocent, what was done to them is done to everyone who performed or witnessed the torture.

My guess? Not much torturing under that condition. Somewhere in the backs of their minds, torture apologists know better.