A suprising conversation

I am so glad that Rick wrote this post here and you all are discussing it with him. When he got back from class (at 11:30pm ish) I was already asleep. He woke me up saying that he had a really interesting conversation that he wanted to share with me "as soon as I was done sleeping". I clearly wasn't done sleeping and couldn't get past the fact that he woke me up to tell me he needed to talk to me in the morning.

It is now obvious to me why he couldn't sleep before getting things off his chest and starting to settle them in his head. Does this happen to all of you? How do you turn down the volume on your thoughts so that you can do things like sleep, go to work and be productive (instead of posting comments on UTI during lunch), and generally function in a society whose current moral majority scares you to death?

Mandy U

I hear on this subject various excuses for and against torture, but the one I seldom seem to hear is that the individual who ends up tortured is quite possibly not guilty.

You see, it's so much easier to torture a confession out of the first person you can pick up than it is to do police work. And torture is self-validating, since the object is to coerce a confession, and resistance to torture is considered clear evidence of guilt.
Oh, someone might try and verify the confession, but wouldn't they feel silly and dirty if it turned out to be false? What a waste of time! After all, if the criminal was willing to be tortured to hide his secret, surely confirmation would be well hidden. Can't take the chance that the criminal would go free on a lack of confirmation. And you can always get confirmation from the next suspect.

Eventually, no one actually bothers to investigate. That is the meaning of the famous movie line: "Round up the usual suspects."

Steve "In a torture state, innocence is evidence of guilt." James

More than one fascist has stated that the reason so many embrace fascist governments and fascist policies is that it utterly relieves them of the burden of having to think for one's self.

Sort of the way official religion used to work when its credibility and moral authority was more absolute...

Worship of the Sky Daddy becomes untenable, but segues nicely into worship of the Great Leader and the exaltation of The State. Ostensibly a shift in a more secular direction, but equally irrational--"We don't torture, we just use 'harsh interrogation methods', etc.

Wish I could say I was surprised by your local poll of opinion, but I'm not.

So we know that Saddam was a "bad guy" because he tortured people, and killed thousands of Iraqis. So were now going to prove that we are the "good guys" by torturing people, and killing unknown hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? How the fuck does that work?

I still can't believe that people are seriously able to have these conversations. Ignoring the fact that torture simply does not work from an intelligence standpoint, it's purely psychological terrorism, I'll even ignore what should be the only argument that matters, morality, and say that as the single most powerful and influential nation that has ever existed we can no longer be effective in the fight to increase human rights around the world. It should be noted that many of the people who support terror probably don't care about human rights.

We used to lead by example, the most effective sort of leadership, when it came to basic human freedom. Thats why we called ourselves the leaders of the free world. Today we have China calling us human rights violators. We have come under the spell that leadership by force is more effective, those who believe that obviously don't know much of our own history. We were once ruled by the most powerful nation on earth, but when they inflicted injustices upon us we overthrew them. If we continue on this path we will be destroyed, and it won't be a military defeat, my guess is it will be economic collapse. You can't grow by spending all your money on military and a minimum on infrastructure, just ask the USSR, or North Korea.

Has an excellent post on torture today: Post-Torture America: Do You Feel Safer?

Jim Downey

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Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.

Arthur Silber has covered torture in a series of essays. It's pretty good.
http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2006/01/on-torture.html

I will break it down to a few sentences.
Torture doesn't work, according to most experts.
The ticking time bomb scenario never happens, except in Hollywood movies.
Torture sanction by the state ultimately leads to its destruction, as proved by history.
Categories don't work, they're always expanded.
Torture, like many tools of the government, can and will be used against innocents for repression, in the same way that innocents who had a bad history with an agent of the state got an IRS audit.
Torture is like incest, it's the gift that keeps on giving.
Torturers are affected too and become sadists. They then take their sadism back to the country, once they're off duty. Torture is not something that happens far away.

Torture is morally wrong, even if it can save lives. You don't sanction it even if it can save lives.

Imagine that incest could somehow save lives. Wouldn't it sound horrible to you if some guy came around and said "Well i think we should sanction it. It's a moral obligation, to save lives." Wouldn't you think this guy is fucked up in the head ? I would, and I do.

In Sam Harris' book "End of Faith" he addresses that ticking time bomb scenario. In the beginning he takes the position that, yes, in certain cases torture might be a valid and morally justifiable action. As he continues he neatly circles around and makes it clear that there really is no good reason for torture.

Ultimately there is no way to know if the information you gather from someone who is being tortured is reliable. When being tortured you will say anything to make it stop. With this in mind there is no basis for condoning the practice.

unfortunately. Blood lust is commonly portrayed as the "manly" or "tough" thing in our culture. And the idea of torture being acceptable has been fed by such shows as "24" - as a justification for what the Evil Ones are doing to our great and glorious Republic. Getting people to realize that it isn't effective, and is morally corrupting, is a difficult task. Even when someone like you, who has served and been through the training, and who understands the risks inherent in allowing torture makes such an argument, they are not heard. Blood lust and barbarism reign.

I've always been of the opinion that those who advocate the legalization of torture do not understand the sacrifices our military (or intelligence agents) are willing to make - I am certain that in the event of the 'ticking time bomb' scenario, that very rare instance where torture might actually be useful, that someone of good conscience would indeed do what was necessary in *spite* of the personal legal ramifications - they would be willing to make that sacrifice for our nation, just as they are willing to either kill or die for our nation. And I want that to be the standard for conducting torture: that the person using it is willing to sacrifice their future career to do so in a true emergency. Because, if their actions are indeed justifiable in that very rare situation, they can be pardoned for their act. Whereas, if you make torture legal, it will be engaged in too easily, be justified too often, will trickle down and become manifest in all sorts of routine abuse of prisoners. I think that is what we have seen happen already.

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Hope you're enjoying the brewing class! I used to do a lot of that - and got quite good at it. A lot of fun, but I got kind of burned out on it.

Jim Downey

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Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.