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MuR)Ernu
Finland768 Posts
On April 17 2009 09:21 HeadBangaa wrote: Obama also voted to renew the Patriot Act. He is no messiah. No he is not the messiah. He's the fuckign president, and he actualy seems to get stuff done. HE IS NOT THE MESSIAH, HE'S A VERY NAUGHTY BOY! | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On April 17 2009 17:23 L wrote: Its the ENTIRE FOCUS OF WESTERN SOCIETY. Yet every single country in Western society involved in conflict engages in it, besides Germany. Spain does it, UK does it, DST (Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire) is brilliant at it. So don't just talk about it in terms of theory or some mythical idea of civil "Western society," because all countries are bad, and they all violate international rules of conduct. In the real world, the only thing you can speak of is relative degrees. | ||
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Koldblooded
United States661 Posts
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On April 17 2009 17:41 Railxp wrote: If you have another piece of evidence, either obtained from another victim (I believe they are victims) or some other source, and they seem to match up, you can start to confirm the legitimacy of their testimony. That's how it would work. This goes the same for torture for initial information. And yes, it does lead to wasted resources.I am interested in attacking the utilitarian argument because once that is gone....i don't see any other reason there would be for torture. Regarding triangulating information or using info gained from torture to verify other info: The purpose for doing this is to get the truth. But since we know that there is humongous incentive to lie under torture, it would be LAST on my list for getting accurate info. If the guy being tortured was innocent, he would claim "i dont know" and when that doesn't work, make up something so that the pain would stop. If the guy being tortured was indeed a terrorist and planned part of the attack, he would ALSO lie (say target location is the white house instead of the pentagon, or claim attack will be a week from now instead of tomorrow.) In either scenario, theres no way to get any solid confirmation details. I think this undermines the torture for verification idea. In the other scenario, if the info gained from torture is true, you would still have to verify it because it is unreliable. At best, one person suffers plenty of physical pain, and the torturer becomes emotionally traumatized, and you save thousands of lives. At worse, you don't believe what he said, and go out to torture even more innocent people to get a confirmation. Hold on a second. What if you know the person is a dangerous criminal? Gitmo is a bad example because of the ridiculous way we detained people, but I'm sure there are facilities filled with only known "terrorists." Are you arguing against torture in the case where it harms innocents or arguing against the act of torture itself?Here the utilitarian argument implodes on itself, because this is NOT efficient at all, and does not serve the "greatest good for greatest number of people" because you are much more likely to get everything wrong and to fuck someone up that to get anything right. Right, it's not efficient, but it doesn't need to be. If they're wrong 9 out of 10 times, but have the resources to test all 10, what should they do (only in this cost/benefit analysis, not speaking ethically.) Now an argument like Physician made is better, because it could be argued that out of all the intelligence gathering services involving prisoners, torture is less effective than other means, and once you fuck someone up through torture, the answers you get in the other tests (like MRIs) becomes unreliable. If you don't believe in the answer, there would be no torture in the first place. I don't know that much about the practices, but I would assume that torture is primarily for the people who won't speak in the first place. It's not that they don't believe the answer, it's that they don't get an answer. Anyone that's willing to talk can be led in circles until they contradict or prove themselves.The only thing to gain out of torture seems to be vengeance, and we all know vengeance doesn't save lives, it costs more lives actually I wouldn't call it vengeance, since I don't think interrogators become that emotionally involved, but I understand your point and agree with it. The point of torture is to prevent violence, but torture may simply perpetuate it and cause retaliation.If you would allow a rather poor metaphor: it is like looking for your keys in the freezer where you know it probably isn't to begin with. Counter productive, waste of time, minimal chance of finding what you want. The counter argument might be that if you've tried everything else, or if you've got 10 of your friends helping you look, it can't hurt. It could though.Moral judgments are universal, you cant just decide to leave them at the door when you go out to get dirty. its not really the guard who is evil if he doesn't know and fails to catch a trespassing murderer. Its still the murderer's fault for killing people. I think many people expect the government to use any means necessary to protect its citizens. The blame is not solely placed on the murderer, as we've seen with decries of the CIA/FBI after 9/11. They could have prevented it, and they didn't, so they're blamed for it.Depending on your take of ethics, it's ethically wrong (I agree with this) but what you need to prove is that it's irrational. There's good arguments for that, just as there are against any utilitarian argument, but I still think you need to give some credit to the people making these decisions under huge amounts of pressure and in ridiculous circumstances. These people aren't dumb, and they're not "bad" people. | ||
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jello_biafra
United Kingdom6642 Posts
On April 17 2009 09:52 ShoCkeyy wrote: Lol scared of insects?.... What kind of insects are we talking about here? And why did he tell them he had a fear of insects? | ||
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Elemenope
Burkina Faso1704 Posts
On April 17 2009 23:25 jello_biafra wrote: And why did he tell them he had a fear of insects? Maybe they found this out from torturing another detainee D: | ||
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sLiMpoweR
United States430 Posts
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afg-warrior
Afghanistan328 Posts
On April 17 2009 09:34 Tyrant wrote: I never understood American politics in regard to torture. If someone aimed to harm my homeland and I were in charge of protecting it, the mother fuckers bent on destruction would be lucky to look as good as the guy shackled to the bed from the movie seven when I got done with him. I think war is terrible, but trying to combat guerrilla tactics with politically correct punitive measures is futile. The only thing you will accomplish is letting them know that there really are no consequences for aggression against said land and perpetuate the conflict. the problem is most of these guys are suspected terrorists....and are legally, innocent till proven guilty. another point is that a lot of the guys that are willing to fuck up america are already prepared to die. they are not gonna give you accurate information and may even intentionally give you false information or at the very least just say anything to make you stop. | ||
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L
Canada4732 Posts
Yet every single country in Western society involved in conflict engages in it, besides Germany. Spain does it, UK does it, DST (Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire) is brilliant at it. So don't just talk about it in terms of theory or some mythical idea of civil "Western society," because all countries are bad, and they all violate international rules of conduct. In the real world, the only thing you can speak of is relative degrees. The fact that things are done does not validate them. Slavery was justified using some of the same arguments. The fact that there IS a market for humans even today does not make the concept relative. In terms of torture, its existence in the west is exclusively within spheres with very little accountability, and are obviously purposely hidden to eschew accountability. This properly hints that even those who are committing the actions recognize the ramifications of people learning of their actions. Why hide these things instead of justify them using the same bullshit 'relative degree' business you're using here? Oh, because they recognize that its quite difficult to directly oppose one's society's own axioms.I really don't see this as an issue of relative degree at all unless you're willing to rethink pretty much the entire western legal tradition. There's a point at which all the flexibility in the world within a tradition fails to account for an action within it, and this is one of those points. Due process has the intrinsic value of being non-corrosive in terms of tradition. When the tradition becomes mutated as to accept multiple and consistent breaches of due process, you lose the stability and predictive value of the tradition. In this case, the main 'loss' is suffered by the constitution itself. If the document (which includes, in my mind, the framework of interpretation surrounding it) is flawed to the point where substantial breach is the proper course of action, then it should be re-drafted. If it is not then someone should be on trial. A trial does not mean a conviction: it means someone is held accountable. That's what the rule of law is. It is not an arbitrary judgement, it is the rule of a process; A very long line of legal reasoning would have it put as the process stemming from a central rule of recognition. Assume western legal thought would more readily accept vengeance as a method of executing a policy of deterrence rather than flat out accepting torture as a method of obtaining information. The concept and application of penal sanctions is far more compatible in that manner. Even then, the process by which such an action would be instigated would have to flow from the 'rule of recognition' in the easiest of methods to application. Essentially one would need to show that the president's actions carry more weight in the rule of recognition than the constitution itself, which would both drastically alter the format of American government, and serve to render the oath the president to serve the constitution into a farce wherein a giant bows to a midget. From both a purely procedural as well as a moral standpoint this has been a horrendous series of events. these people are terrorists after all. Prove it. That's the job of our courts. If I put you in jail because I suspect you of being a terrorist because you clearly know nothing about the American legal system, and you protest that you're innocent, it won't really matter if you don't get your day in court. That's why we have due process. | ||
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Flaccid
8922 Posts
On April 18 2009 02:43 gophillies3939 wrote: i don't see anything wrong with this, these people are terrorists after all. Are they? Good documentary about torture: ![[image loading]](https://www.mrwsecure.com/market/images/T/Taxi%20to%20the%20Dark%20Side%20DVD.jpg) | ||
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Terranist
United States2496 Posts
On April 18 2009 02:43 gophillies3939 wrote: i don't see anything wrong with this, these people are terrorists after all. ![[image loading]](http://www.phawker.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/americafuckyeah.jpg) | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
i thought obama released these because they were going to be released under freedom of information act since the ACLU was projected to win their lawsuit? if the ACLU was going to win anyway, why the uproar? | ||
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lokiM
United States3407 Posts
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LaughingTulkas
United States1107 Posts
On April 17 2009 11:15 IntoTheWow wrote: I do not know a lot about American law, but doesn't this shit all over the Bill of Rights? lol Actually, the American Bill of Rights only applies to American citizens, and has no bearing on citizens of other countries, them being outside it's jurisdiction, as it were. However, it is clearly against the spirit and dream of the founding fathers in creating the United States. I would oppose most of these forms of torture, as I like to keep less power in the hands of the government. I mean, if our central government hadn't gotten so much power, I doubt we'd ever have been in the situation where other countries hated us so much. It's not our prosperity and culture they hate, it's what past governments have done. If we had just stayed at home a lot sooner than now, I think there'd be a lot less problems. At least, that's what I think, it's kinda too late to try now... | ||
p4NDemik
United States13896 Posts
On April 18 2009 13:47 lokiM wrote: I'm kind of confused, didn't every1 know that we they were torturing terrorists? what is so surprising? not saying I agree with it but I don't see why every1 is so surprised. I think you're totally missing the point of what's going on in this thread. It's been common knowledge that the U.S. had been torturing detainees for some time. This doesn't stop people from arguing about it or the current administrations handling of it. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
nevertheless, i dont think it is simply a politically calculated move. there is a legitimate demand for clear facts on the issue, and the release of the memos is a gesture of openness and reasonableness, two things that was in short supply. it will at least bolster goodwill. prosecuting the people is an impossible task anyway, since this is not a matter of individual initiatives, it is difficult to assign culpability, and most likely any sort of heavy punishment will just single out certain individuals for show and political theatre. expected in movies, not sensible in practice. obama is a fine political tactician, i just dont think he has the connections, or had the connections | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
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Servolisk
United States5241 Posts
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sigma_x
Australia285 Posts
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konadora
Singapore66364 Posts
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