# The Senate torture report **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 9, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773 "2014-12-09T17:20:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 709
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/709 "2014-12-13T12:08:13Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Their “level” last month killed 5000 people. That’s just last month. Where’s the comparison exactly? You’re comparing physical discomfort to mass murder? _Torture_ to mass murder, thank you. And how is this an argument? “See, we’re doing something morally reprehensible, inexcusable, and terrible, but they do worse things, so we’re fine!” How far above their level do you think we should be, **Magiver**? One notch? Three notches? Is it okay if our government randomly murdered 4000 people for dissenting? Would we have been justified in systematically wiping out the wives and children of everyone in the German army ca. 1944, so long as the death toll was lower than 6.000.000 and there was no racism involved? Here’s a revolutionary idea. How about, instead of trying to excuse the inexcusable by pointing to how evil our enemies are, we judge what we do on our own merit? Torture is WRONG. Big, all-caps, write-it-in-500-foot-tall-flaming-letters-on-the-moon _WRONG_. Anyone seeing our government commit such vile acts institutionally would be entirely justified in seeing our government as a group of morally reprehensible thugs, regardless of whether our enemy was the Taliban, or Russia, or fucking _Hitler_. Isn’t that our claim to fame here? That we’re the moral high ground? We’re the good guys. _Good guys don’t torture._ Personally,I really like the way **clairobscure** put it in the pit thread, and I feel that this should be repeated. > [@Defence of torture and torturers, really?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defence-of-torture-and-torturers-really/707016/51): > > Yes, it is. Im pretty sure that if I had predicted that the USA would detain people without due process, use torture, etc… when I joined the board, I would have been laughed out of the thread. Essentially everybody (except say, people like **Der Trihs** ) would have stated that such a thing couldn’t happen in the USA. > > In fact, it’s not so much that I’m surprised that some people would support torture but rather that it became an acceptable view in the USA, supported by many, if not the majority. A mainstream position in this country. And on this board. > > Imagine that instead I’m predicting now that in 2025, the US government will censor medias, and forbid political parties deemed unpatriotic. And that not only it turns out to be true, but also that American people in general and posters on this board in particular become supportive of it. That’s more or less my level of surprise re Guantanamo and torture. And no, the collateral damage from the drone strikes is not comparable. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773)._