Torture: Is It Ever Acceptable?

[injest]

I think about this a lot. At one time I thought it would be impossible for us (USA) to use torture. I was wrong.

[ifyoucantfixit]

          NO NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  It is immoral
  It doesen't work. 
  It wins us a thousand times more enemies than we have already
  Its impractical, because you can never believe the information is true..or something
  that was manufactured in order to stop the torture.
  But:   I think most of all It starts a slippery slope toward the worst kind of inhumane
  being, we will become if we do it.  
  Also It will leave our position very tenable, in case any of our people are confiscated..
  If we are known as torturers, it will leave the door open for all the people in the     
  world to  perform those activities , and retaliate in kind.

[injest]

studies have shown it is not reliable...yet we still hear about people in OUR government wanting to do it.

 

[David In Indy]

Absolutely NO! Never is torture appropriate! NEVER!

I can't believe there are some Americans (and Europeans too) who feel torture is okay. I thought we were above these kinds of tactics. Apparently not.

Jess, I think you may have opened up a huge can of worms with this question, but I applaud you for having the courage! Remember my "Death Penalty" thread? 


Run it on up the flagpole and let's see if anyone salutes it. 

[injest]

Absolutely NO! Never is torture appropriate! NEVER!

I can't believe there are some Americans (and Europeans too) who feel torture is okay. I thought we were above these kinds of tactics. Apparently not.

Jess, I think you may have opened up a huge can of worms with this question, but I applaud you for having the courage! Remember my "Death Penalty" thread? 


Run it on up the flagpole and let's see if anyone salutes it. 

are you calling me an agitator?? 

 

yep...

[David In Indy]

I enjoyed participating in your death penalty thread, David.  Did we get too out of hand for you, or something?    

BTW, I was against the death penalty.  And I'm very much against toture. 

No Gary. Nobody got out of hand in the death penalty thread. If I had thought it was going in the wrong direction I would have locked it. Everything was fine in there, but a few of the debates became a little heated, which is perfectly fine with me, so long as no one is being attacked personally. Fortunately this never happened.

[mvansand76]

Maybe you should change the title of the thread to Torture by the US Government is it ever acceptable. In that instance I would say no, neither should any other country.

However, more personally, if somebody would harm or kill one of my loved-ones I would be very willing to take a course informing me about all the possible torture techniques possible nowadays so that I could practice them on the perpetrator.

[Kelda]

Well, it appears I'm the only maybe. But like Mel I was taking it from a non American viewpoint.

[serious crayons]

Yes, I think torture is acceptable. But ONLY if you're Jack Bauer and you have captured a terrorist who is the only one in the entire world who knows the code to disarm the nuclear bomb that is set to go off in 10 minutes, destroying a third of Los Angeles and killing millions of people, including the visiting U.S. president, his sister, the irreplacable computer whiz Chloe, and your late brother's son (who, incidentally, I secretly suspect is actually the son of you, Jack Bauer, from a previous illicit dalliance with your sister-in-law). If all those conditions are in effect, then sure, have at it, torture away! With my blessing!

Luckily, this situation isn't one we have to worry about confronting very often. Not least because Jack Bauer is a fictional character.

Under any other circumstances, forget it. Torture is one of the most incredibly inhuman (and yes, I mean inhuman, not inhumane) that people do.

[David In Indy]

Well, it appears I'm the only maybe. But like Mel I was taking it from a non American viewpoint.

Hi Kelda!

Well, I think Americans may be jumping the gun here, because we just learned the CIA has managed to destroy valuable evidence regarding their torture tactics during the past several years.

Yes. They destroyed it, and yet the White House claims they have no idea. How about THAT for a kick in the ass? So, I assumed Jess meant Torture in regards to the US government.

Jess, what did you mean? We're a bit confused here.