A significant segment of the US population wanted people to pay for 9/11. It wanted people locked up. Politicians wanted to be seen to be achieving what that segment of the population wanted.
So we should apply our national legal standards to the issue, and since they have not formally ruled, it isn’t torture. And we shouldn’t apply our common ethical standards to the issue, because they are a subjective result of our culture, so it isn’t torture.
Is that about right?
John Yoo and various representatives of the executive branch of government - what, did you miss the news for the past six years?
And the sales will be irrelevant as to whether the song is actually good. We can all have opinions about whether an action is right or wrong, but does not mean the actions actually are right or wrong. People can scream all they want that the coërcive interrogation techniques are wrong, and from their perspective the techniques are wrong. But from the interrogators’ prospective, the techniques are not wrong. There is no objective and absolute standard by which to judge these perspectives.
John Yoo does not support torture. His position is that the coërcive interrogation techniques are not torture and that the President has expansive power in regard to national security. Can you cite some quotes from administration officials saying that they support torture?
Wait a sec, I thought you just said there is no such thing as good?
You are tying yourself in knots.
Equally, whether the song is “actually good” (something you have said is not actually a valid concept anyway) is not relevant to sales. But sales are real. Sales are objective. And sales happen depending upon whether people have the opinion that the song is good. So people’s opinion about the song is relevant, whether you agree or disagree, and whether you reject the entire concept of good or not. Your words are irrelevant whining in a whisper during a tornado.
But if enough people agree that what the interrogators did was wrong the interrogators will be locked up. That is objective. That is real. And it starts with people forming conclusions about right and wrong. It doesn’t matter that there is no objective and absolute standard from which to judge these perspectives. It’s an undergraduate irrelevancy upon which you place a silly amount of importance.
That is still my position. Record sales have nothing to do with whether a song is actually good. Neither does anything else.
Their opinion is relevant to how many copies will sell, but this has nothing to do with an objective good. I would never suggest that opinions are totally irrelevant.
Can you cite that a law that allows us to lock someone up because he did something that people decide is morally wrong after the fact? People get locked up because they commited acts that were illegal at the time they committed the acts.
Do watch the clip - it’s only two minutes long.
You may be unwilling to read between the lines, but Yoo’s position is that the President can order anything to be done to a suspect under his national security power - he would not admit to any order that would be illegal. Anything is a broad word, and includes torture.
The ultimate in relative morality may be your argument, but that doesn’t make anyone else have to take it seriously - I don’t.
I did watch the clip. Yoo never says that the President can do anything we wants to suspect. He tries to answer the question, but Rep. Conyers will not allow him to answer.
And legal analysis is not the same thing as supporting an action. A defense attorney that represents a child rapist is not supporting child rape.
I’m not sure you want to run very far with this analogy - Yoo provided the administration with legal advice prior to the incidents we’re talking about.
If we were to run with your defense attorney analogy - the defense attorney provided advice to the rapist prior to the rape saying it was justifiable under the Constitution.
Yoo did not tell them to do anything. He gave an analysis of the legal questions. Since child rape is never justified, a better analysis would be a lawyer telling his client prior to a killing what would make that killing justifiable. For instance an attorney in Texas giving an analysis of whether a homeowner could gun down someone who trying to run away with the homeowners stereo from the homeowner’s house and the attorney saying by his analysis of the law that is a justified killing. That does not mean the attorney is saying go shoot the guy robbing your house.
Actually, you do that all the time. Your standard response when people express the opinion that a recent event is wrongful is to suggest this is irrelevant as there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong. You clearly imply if not downright assert that this is an effective and relevant rebuttal.
But now (as usual) you are retreating by saying merely that people’s opinions about the morality of a recent event is not “totally” irrelevant. If something is “not totally irrelevant” it is “relevant”. So when someone expresses the opinion that a recent event is wrongful, by your own logic, that is relevant.
Can you stop prevaricating between what is lawful and what people believe to be right and wrong? The former is what you retreat to when you are getting your ass kicked in debate about the latter, I notice. But never mind that. Let’s deal with what you say.
As has been pointed out, historically criminal prosecution of state torturers has depended upon whether the state torturers continue to have the support of the government behind them. After WWII, Japanese torturers were convicted, US guys weren’t. The laws are on the books to prosecute, the real questions are whether there are prosecutions, and whether there are pardons.
If the opinion of the US populace is strongly that what has been done by US operatives is wrong and should be punished, there is a real chance that opinion will result in action towards prosecution. Opinion is relevant.
Two and a Half Inches of Fun, if you want to take on the world in some sort of odd conglomeration of semantics and high school level epistemology and ethics, open your own thread somewhere. Your posts in this thread are nothing but a self-serving hijack and they have now come to an end. Do not post your there is no right or wrong schtick, (or any of its corollaries) in this thread, again.
[ /Moderating ]
Looking at people’s opinion on coërcive interrogation techniques: their opinion is irrelevant is to the question of whether is actually right or wrong; their opinion is not irrelevant as to whether they will buy John Yoo’s new book.
You brought up locking people up. We have to lock at the legal issues. We are a nation of laws, not men.
We do not know if there are laws to prosecute these actions. These actions might be legal.
I agree it is relevant to whether steps will be taken towards prosecution, but that does not mean that a conviction can achieved or even that that an indictment can be achieved. If the legal determination by courts is that these acts were legal, no amount of public opinion can changed that except for a constitutional amendment allowing ex post facto laws. I am for one am thankful we do not live in a country where if enough people agree that an action the actors will be locked up regardless of the law.
OK. Can I still post on the legal issues?
Not based on your last two posts which are nothing more than corollaries of your “no right or wrong” schtick, substituting “we can’t know if there has been a crime until there is a conviction” for “we can’t know right from wrong.”
The only substantive questions are whether there is the political will to prosecute (and not pardon) and whether what has occurred was a crime.
The first question is one involving analysis of opinion and politics. The US is a nation of laws, but laws administered by people.
Whether what occurred is a crime is a matter of law. The analyses (written by persons not complicit) that I have read lean heavily towards the conclusion that what has occurred amounts to infringement of laws against torture.
That there has been no actual conviction is not relevant to consideration of whether there would be such a conviction, were it pursued with vigour. Your implication to the contrary is inane.