If you see its seeds in Plato (born in c. 427BC), then why 2000 years, not 2400?
Nightime, thank you for the compliment at the beginning of your post.
Try to remember that a lot of the discussion that goes on here is along the line of rumination. Often, a certain type of action or recourse can be tossed out to make a point without having first considered every possible ramification that action or recourse might entail.
You are right in that such a proposal is very, very serious. And if such a policy were ever to be enacted it would have to be monitored and supervised very closely and with very severe penalties for it’s misuse.
As far as its being inhumane, I agree. But to me it’s far more inhumane to let someone who may be still alive slowly expire because every effort isn’t being made to find them. And it’s far more inhumane in my opinion, to let families suffer and suffer over the question of what has become of their loved one when someone obviously knows the answer and refuses to divulge it simply out of meanness or spite.
A great deal of inhumanity and needless suffering occurs in this country as a result of our efforts to be humane in regard to our treatment of criminals. A great deal.
I am not cheerleading and engaging in a rah-rah bloodlust to torture people. But we trust our courts (judges) with a great many decisions as to when law enforcement may or may not engage in behavior that is otherwise prohibited. I would most certainly not be in favor of “government” being able to take it upon itself to decide when torture may be applied in a given situation. However, I would be in favor of a system where torture could be used at the discretion of a neutral jurist in order to save the lives of someone who has been kidnapped or imprisoned, or in order to bring resolution to the families and loved ones of murder victims.
I would also be in favor of it as a tool in the war on terror. I would be horrified, disgusted and outraged to learn at some time that some terrorist with prior knowledge of a catastrophic attack had been in custody prior to the attack and that the attack was allowed to occur rather than subject the terrorist to enough pain to cause him to divulge the information that would have prevented it.
To me, there is no comparison in terms of inhumanity as to which is the most egregious path to take.
But torture, if it ever comes into play as I describe, would have to be very, very closely supervised and used under only the most extreme circumstances.
Frankly, I’m speechless. I mean, just, OMFG. I can’t believe you are serious. I mean, have you no concept of civil rights? Human rights?
Your post is the stuff nightmares are made of.
Everyone in America is equal, although some suffering families are more equal than others.
Sweet Jesus.
I mean HOLY FUCKING CHRIST! You are proposing throwing out almost the entire fucking foundation of our country! The first amendment, the fifth amendment, the eight amendment, the fourth amendment, possibly the fourteenth amendment. That goes against every fucking principle the nation is built upon.
You are proposing a fucking police state.
I’m stunned.
Indeed. I’m very, very glad to hear that you and your family are okay. My best wishes for things to return to normal in your life as quickly as possible.
Regards. 
I’m doing nothing of the sort. Take a chill pill and read my post again.
:::Chill Pill:::
Goverment sponsored torture. Deprive suspected (that pesky innocent until proven guilty clause) being deprived of functionally every inalienable right granted them by the Constitution in order to further police investigations.
Police state. Makes me happy for the second amendment.
Should be “Suspected criminals, etc…”
Okay, Starving Artist. We get government sponsored torture. Your son or daughter is walking through the park, when they happen on a bloody knife. Turns out, an adorable five year old has been kidnapped. Your child is holding a smoking gun. The police get a physical-encouragement warrant. What do you do when the broomstraw is up your kid’s sinuses?
Or even better, say your child actually has kidnapped the kid in a moment of desperation. Or has taken their own child away from an abusive spouse, who has filed for a torture-order to get their own kid back.
I don’t give a shit about the particulars; what do you do when they’re tapping on your kids eardrums?
Oh, please!
Do we have “state sponsored” beatings when it’s necessary to use force to bring a suspect into custody? Do we have “state sponsored” kidnapping when we arrest somebody? Do we have “state sponsored” imprisonment when we sentence someone to jail? Do we have “state sponsored” wiretapping when we electronically surveil someone under court order?
No. We have actions that would be illegal and reprehensible under normal circumstances, but which are necessary to uphold the law and maintain order and protect our citizens when laws are broken.
Why is this any different? The republic has survived the “state sponsored” depriving of people of their liberty by arresting them. It has survived “state sponsored” wiretapping…something that would get you and me thrown in jail if we did it. It has survived executions, which you undoubtedly consider “state sponsored” murder.
What would your position be – and I mean really and truly – if you happened to be out of town when a terrorist-planted atomic device went off in your town and killed all your family and most of the people you know, and you were to discover that the men who had planted it had been arrested beforehand and were sitting in a jail cell laughing and admitting they had planted it but refusing to say where, and that the bomb was allowed to just go off and kill 100,000 people, rather than use the infliction of pain upon the terrorists in order to find out where it was?
You’d be singing a different kind of tune entirely, unless you’re so far gone that it is you who is no longer human. I would torture a terrorist in a heartbeat in order to save the lives of thousands of people!
There is such a thing as context and there is such a thing as judgement.
Both would have to brought into play in order to justify the imposition of torture to obtain information, but worse is done daily in every town in this country.
How so, you ask?
Go to any jail or execution chamber and ask the prisoner if he would trade a torture session for his sentence and see what he’d say?
This is what I mean by worse being done every day.
People are made to suffer, by both good guys and bad, in this country every day. So the question of torture isn’t a question of inflicting suffering where otherwise none would exist; rather it’s a matter of what is considered to be permissible and what isn’t.
I believe under certain circumstances it should be permissible, and I don’t believe doing so represents any sort of threat to the republic, as I explained above.
This is why I’m saying it should only be done under certain circumstance and then only if a judge can be persuaded that it’s in order…just like is the case with certain other types of ordinarily illegal police activity such as breaking-and-entering without a warrant, wiretapping, etc.
It hasn’t been my intention to turn this thread into a debate over the use of torture, nor is it really in my best interest to spend days explaining myself as I have often done in the past. Therefore, I’m going to bow out now and wish all who remain a good night.
And remember, we’re talking here is all. Bandying about ideas. Nothing discussed here is likely to happen in the foreseeable future (the election notwithstanding), and if it ever does it will be due to the actions of many more people than those of us present here.
And it’s possible that any of us, if faced with the actual, day-to-day, real-life choice to enact some of the things we champion here, would stop and give it a very serious and careful second look.
So let’s try to not get too terribly invested emotionally in what is discussed here, as none of it is likely to come to much. This country is a great deal bigger than we are, and it will do what it eventually does regardless of what we say here.
So regards to all, and good night.
Let me amend the above to read…“would stop and give it a very serious and careful second look, myself included.”
Again, regards and good night.
Y’know, if the police break into my house with a crappy warrant signed by a crappy judge, I’ll be pissed.
But if the police torture me with the permission of a crappy warrant signed by a crappy judge–that’s gonna go a little ways beyond pissed.
You’ve got a pretty amazing faith in our judicial system, that you’re willing to let a judge decide to let you be tortured.
Me, not so much.
Daniel
It worked great after WWII in Germany, In Italy, in Japan and other places. Oh, and if you study your history, you might want to look at a little group called the “Werewolves”. Fanatical Nazi terrorists who did the exact same types of things to occupying troops in Germany as the Tehran backed “insurgents” are doing in Iraq today, including sabotage and the massacre of civilians. Germany turned out all right in the long run. Everyone acting like what’s happening in Iraq is a huge shock is rather ignorant of history, I suspect. I knew this was going to go on and would have to be endured before we get where we’re going. (which doesn’t mean that this administrations handling of post war reconstruction efforts hasn’t been pretty poor, it has)
Well, since tonights video almost certainly demonstrates that UBL’s alive, we can all start tgetting really inventive again.
Exactly. I was going to make this point; glad I read all the way to the end of the thread! Just wanted to chime in and add some support.
You misunderstood me. I wasn’t saying that the Geneva convention didn’t apply for a particular category of person or crime, but that it only apply in case of war. If a terrorist is arrested, in say, the New-York subway, the Geneva convention is irrelevant. Most terrorists are caught this way, not in time of war or in occupied territories.
I love this sentence. I’m going to secretely borrow it.
I’m glad to hear someone else saying this. It seems to me the only way to rid the world of OBL without making a marta of him. I’m sure he has enough enimies in Saudia Arabia to ensure the trial doesn’t last forever, he surely has published enough videos of himself to make the link to 9/11 proveable. And the murder of Muslims (and I hope other faiths) carries the death penalty in that country, many Muslims must have been amongst those killed in the twin towers.