Torture is OK say 1 in 3

Snoopy · 10-19-2006, 07:17 PM

Inhumanity breeding inhumanity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/6063386.stm

"In this world
hostilities are never
appeased by hostility.
But by the absence of hostility
are they appeased.
This is an interminable truth."

Dhammapada 5

wil · 10-19-2006, 07:47 PM

When the US gov't was determining whether and what was ok, and what constituted torture...I wrote to my congressmen and senators suggesting that anyone who vote aye should be subjected to waterboarding to determine if they have taken any unethical funds or unethical agreements which lead to them changing their vote on any issue....I only got form letters back.

Snoopy · 10-19-2006, 07:57 PM

Hi fellow UU!,

What I found most shocking was the particularly high percentages "accepting" torture by respondents in some countries; almost as if it's considered part and parcel of the security forces job descriptions.

S.

Ciel · 10-19-2006, 08:26 PM

Torture is unacceptable under any condition.

Snoopy · 10-19-2006, 09:16 PM

I agree.

s.

Dor · 10-20-2006, 03:13 PM

I am sure I will get hammered.
Before I could vote for or against. I'd have to have a definition of torture.
True torture-no no. Coercion- definately in some cases.

wil · 10-20-2006, 03:29 PM

I have the same issues with never as I do with hypothetical situations...I've got no idea what would actually occur if I were in a situation.

Sometimes I have this wonderful concept of who I am and how I should/would act. Sometimes I feel good about how I handle situations, and other situations are put in front of me to identify where I need work, or where my concepts of who I am need to be modified.

So hypothetically...

If someone were to kidnap my daughter....and I or the police got one of the kidnappers...

What I would like to say as the law of the land and my decisions to follow it or not may vary....

And when it comes to one individual vs. a stadium full....

damn the line gets awful blurry...

I, Brian · 10-20-2006, 04:08 PM

I think Dor has a good point - there are ways and means of working within, or working around, any definition of torture.

What I found interesting, though, is that this poll came out on the same day that the UK intelligence services approached TV and newspaper media with a story about Britain being Al Qaeda's No.1 target.

Now, the intelligence services don't approach the media unless they are politically compelled to do so. Coupled with the poll, I smell a political spin campaign here - either to try and soften the UK's general dislike against the effects of the US foreign policy we've kow-towed to, or else because - heavens forbid - that Tony Blair is looking to bring in additional legilsation on a par with the new US Military Commissions Act.

flowperson · 10-21-2006, 12:39 AM

Brian:

My opinion is that this is all part of a larger and deeper picture which has to do with shifting the moral baselines of civilized behaviors. IMHO, these sorts of gambits are the logical move of forceful governments which have effectively scared their populations into submission with repeated terror threats. One could say that the first instances of this tactic was in Germany in the early 1930's after their economy collapsed and Adolph and the boys took charge, and then used mass propaganda tactics to bend the popular will to their bidding.

I'll admit, some awful terror incidents have occured, since they have periodically since the onset of the seventies, but might the scare tactics recently used on us all in the West be somewhat out of proportion to the real threats? This is a classic historical gambit of political power. Scare the bejesus out of the people and they are more easily manipulated.

By the way, Google the term "shifting baselines" and read up on some of the stuff out there on this cultural phenomenon which is a relatively recent
aspect in our lives, mostly because of the accelleration of global communications.

flow....

Snoopy · 10-21-2006, 09:55 AM

Hi all,

I think torture rather than coercion is shown by the photograph on the page I hyperlinked to.

I understand about the daughter kidnapping sentiment. This is presumably why criminal law is not made by victims.

And yes flow and Brian mass mind control is the name of the game.

S.

Quahom1 · 10-21-2006, 07:01 PM

Torture is like obscenity. It depends upon who is perceiving it.

There are obvious things like physical damage, and less immediate things like mental and emotional damage.

It also depends upon who is being "tortured", and why.

Nothing is in black and white.

Ciel · 10-21-2006, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quahom1

Torture is like obscenity. It depends upon who is perceiving it.

There are obvious things like physical damage, and less immediate things like mental and emotional damage.

It also depends upon who is being "tortured", and why.

Nothing is in black and white.

Q, Have you ever been tortured?
Have you ever tortured another?
Have you been a witness to torture of others?

- c -

Quahom1 · 10-21-2006, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ciel

Q, Have you ever been tortured?
Have you ever tortured another?
Have you been a witness to torture of others?

- c -

Depends (I might say no, someone else might say yes)
Depends (I might say yes, someone else might say no)
Depends...(same thing applies here as well)

It's based on the point of view of the perceiver.

Have you ever beat someone until they were unconscious, and called it a fight, because they were picking on you and you had enough? Was that torture? From who's perspective?

flowperson · 10-22-2006, 12:24 AM

Torture is a pre-determined course of actions and events that are directed by an individual or institution for the sole purpose of damaging, temporarily or permanently, another's physical, emotional, and spiritual well being. It is an anti-life activity since it's sole purpose is to deaden the life force of another human being so that they might be more easily controlled to suit the needs and purposes of the controller(s)/ torturer(s). It is always a white and black situation and never grey.

The planned outcomes of tortuous actions upon others are always deterministic and are always directed with intent. Slavery, of course, would be considered to be torture of a life-long nature. There is no such thing as accidental or or unintentional torture. Beating another senseless when fighting back as a result of being "picked on" is not torture since it is an act of self defense controlled and triggered by one's accumulated rage.

Uncontrolled violence, which, as we are seeing in Iraq, is one certain long-term outcome of torture. Torture always causes real, open-ended damage to the tortured individuals and the environments that they inhabit, as we see everyday now on the news from Iraq. As John Paul II once declared, it would become a holocaust, and it seems that we have moved things along quite well since 2003 so that we're most of the way there.

Those poor people, an entire nation tortured. And unless I'm greatly mistaken, Gaza will be the next to explode from the prolonged torture of its citizens. Saddam is what he is and was, but our continuing intervention there is/was a great mistake and will forever be marked in history as such.

Q...you write about torture as if you're working for the U.S. Attorney General. The world, in my opinion, has gone crazy by giving official credence to such discussions and policies. Bringing something like this out of the darkness into the light to be discussed, defined, and formalized is not a good thing for many of us for it makes us more active participants in this disgusting and debasing process.

I'm sure Honest Abe is rapidly spinning in his tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois as I write this.

flow....

Quahom1 · 10-22-2006, 12:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flowperson

Torture is a pre-determined course of actions and events that are directed by an individual or institution for the sole purpose of damaging, temporarily or permanently, another's physical, emotional, and spiritual well being. It is an anti-life activity since it's sole purpose is to deaden the life force of another human being so that they might be more easily controlled to suit the needs and purposes of the controller(s)/ torturer(s). It is always a white and black situation and never grey.

The planned outcomes of tortuous actions upon others are always deterministic and are always directed with intent. Slavery, of course, would be considered to be torture of a life-long nature. There is no such thing as accidental or or unintentional torture. Beating another senseless when fighting back as a result of being "picked on" is not torture since it is an act of self defense controlled and triggered by one's accumulated rage.

Uncontrolled violence, which, as we are seeing in Iraq, is one certain long-term outcome of torture. Torture always causes real, open-ended damage to the tortured individuals and the environments that they inhabit, as we see everyday now on the news from Iraq. As John Paul II once declared, it would become a holocaust, and it seems that we have moved things along quite well since 2003 so that we're most of the way there.

Those poor people, an entire nation tortured. And unless I'm greatly mistaken, Gaza will be the next to explode from the prolonged torture of its citizens. Saddam is what he is and was, but our continuing intervention there is/was a great mistake and will forever be marked in history as such.

Q...you write about torture as if you're working for the U.S. Attorney General. The world, in my opinion, has gone crazy by giving official credence to such discussions and policies. Bringing something like this out of the darkness into the light to be discussed, defined, and formalized is not a good thing for many of us for it makes us more active participants in this disgusting and debasing process.

I'm sure Honest Abe is rapidly spinning in his tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois as I write this.

flow....

Lol, try hurting my family. Then we would see who I am working for...

My point Flow is that what one calls torture, another might call interrogation. What one calls "vengance" another might call justification.

Based on your first paragraph, any cop who interrogates a suspect of violence and makes them uncomfortable in any way is torturing that person.

I submit that if we didn't make "bad" people "uncomfortable" in order to get information, our "civilized" society would soon not exist.

Putting the fear of God into someone is sometimes a necessarry "evil".

If a frog is put in tepid water, and the heat is turned up slowly, the frog won't realize it until he is dead...then he won't care.

If a frog is thrown in hot water, he will jump out, and do what ever you want, to keep from being thrown back in that hot water...