There is a debate about torture?

[walldude]

Huh? This is an issue that needs debate? Christ the Bush legacy is even worse than I thought. They have somehow managed to make torturing another human being a debatable issue. I'm sorry maybe I'm just too naive, maybe we do need to become total fucking scumbags to survive in the 21st century, Maybe torture isn't so bad. Maybe the Nuremberg trials were all bullshit, Maybe we should be so afraid of everything around us that we become worse than our worst fears.



Yeah, and maybe big blue hairy monkeys will fly out of my ass.

[TahitiNut]

1. We seem to tie too much of our "understanding" to labels ... words, not REALITY.

"Why know the name of a thing when the thing itself you do not know?
Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes?
But indeed, the work of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one,
and so begin to be wise!"

-- George MacDonald, Lilith, 1895

Without a true and deep understanding of the reality underlying the words we employ, we're merely posturing and strutting.

[Raksha]

25. I absolutely love your quote from MacDonald's "Lilith."

I read the book ages but didn't remember that at all. Thanks for posting it--that just may become my new sig line on another forum.

[TahitiNut]

27. Thanks! When I was reading it and came upon that quote it just struck me dumb.

I felt it perfectly captured how we're "in our heads" and so often have little 'full-body' experience with things we talk about. I 'harvested' the quote immediately ... as a reminder.

[omega minimo]

30. have you read/listened to Eckhart Tolle? He addresses this very accessibly.

[Towlie]

31. The first line is an especially appropriate response to accusations of "socialism"

"Why know the name of a thing when the thing itself you do not know?"

[omega minimo]

29. As a recovering posturer and strutter

you have become a gem of an asset to DU. ;)

:applause: :spray:

[omega minimo]

2. So much of sane and decent life was "deregulated" by the Republicons and now it's "normal"

[Raksha]

26. Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls this process "normalizing the abnormal,"

and the rhetoric about a so-called "torture debate" certainly fits that definition.

[omega minimo]

32. "Normalizing the abnormal" -- the post Reagan era.

[stillcool]

3. Torture? We don't torture..

President Bush said we don't torture. Torture is extreme mental or physical pain. We just do discomfort. And if it doesn't take place in the United States, Congress says it isn't torture anyway. All that stuff we do is not 'intended' to cause severe pain, and there are professionals right there to determine when the pain turns severe, see. Even if someone is a little worn down from their previous non-torture session, and mistakenly feels extreme pain, that isn't torture, because that was not what was intended. So...we don't torture.

[PufPuf23]

15. Ouch!! What stung me.

Sure is dark and cramped in here.

[stillcool]

21. Did I read that the insects had their...

'stingers removed' and the non-torturer was to tell the person who was frightened of insects that they were harmless? Granted one might be in a small coffin like 'container', with no light, in which you can not move, but those insects..well they're just a nuisance. You may have not eaten a solid meal in days, weeks, and you may not have slept, and you may have been shackled and forced to stay in the same stress position for hours..before you went into that little 'container'..but the insects? Pfft...

[Solly Mack]

20. Yep...that's their excuse

[EFerrari]

4. This week I learned that there's good faith torture and bad faith torture!

:crazy:

But, good news this weekend, walldude. ACLU and the UN are calling for investigation and prosecution!

[Solly Mack]

5. and I just learned - mere minutes ago - that

there are acceptable and unacceptable torture techniques.

I wanted to scream...Are you even listening to yourself?!?!

[EFerrari]

11. We need a hair rending smilie.

Do you know the play Julius Caesar, Solly Mack?

"Caesar did never wrong but with just cause" is a line that has been going through my mind this week. Or the Nixonion update, "it's not illegal when the president does it". :crazy:

[Solly Mack]

14. Yes. Yes. and Yes!

[Jazzgirl]

28. What about a little something like this.

[EFerrari]

33. LOL! That works.

:)

[walldude]

9. Thank god someone still has some fucking sense left... n/t

[EFerrari]

17. No kidding. I"m still fighting off the feeling I'm on acid

that I got when Obama called these CIA people courageous and dedicated. :crazy:

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R Amazing init?

[kentuck]

7. Well said...

Next we will be debating whether or not putting small babies on sharp sticks and roasting them over an open fire is tantamount to murder?

And they say they don't want the enemy knowing how we "torture" prisoners. That we have lost that information to them and therefore, it makes it more useless. But, I thought had said that it would never be used again?? So, if we're never going to use it again....is someone lying here??

[MarjorieG]

8. Only about spending all the time and resources as sole definition of justice, urgency of the countr

Obama has left the door open for a full investigation and debate how torture doesn't work and is not good for the country, in any way. We can still prosecute if the entire country wants it, in a bi-partisan way to legitimize it. Meanwhile, a lot of the history is out there for all to see.

[walldude]

12. "We can still prosecute if the entire country wants it"

see this is exactly what I am talking about. A debate. In my mind there is no debating this issue. I could care less if the country doesn't want to prosecute. The only reason they wouldn't is because it was us doing the torturing. Hypocrisy of the highest order. I mean, there are things in those memo's about torturing peoples children for god's sakes...

[EFerrari]

16. So, we poll to see if we still have the rule of law?

[The Straight Story]

10. If monkeys do fly out of your ass, you best explain how they got there

:)

[walldude]

13. I was out of gerbils.

:rofl:

[The Straight Story]

18. I hope they are small monkeys for your sake

:)

[walldude]

22. Well, they only get so small, you just gotta keep their nails trimmed...

otherwise it's like the morning after Habaneros.

[kentuck]

19. K & R !

an excellent point.

[Duende azul]

23. Thank you, k&r

Creepy how this thing develops.

Another point I can´t stomach is Obama's choice of words. Prosecution of a crime is not "retribution".

[Raksha]

24. There is no "torture debate" and there doesn't need to be one either.

The whole idea of a "debate" about torture is one more right-wing smokescreen--and not a very effective one.

[walldude]

34. Well look around DU, there is a debate, the RW "smokescreen" as you call it

has worked. Quite well.

[NNN0LHI]

35. Yes according to some here anyone is capable of torture, murder and child rape

Some people around here have lost their fucking minds.

But luckily they are easy to spot.

Don

[truth2power]

38. I agree that some around here have lost their minds...

I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that anyone here has an agenda of any sort. No siree...

But it does seem that there are people who just want the whole torture thing to go away. I can't imagine why.. :eyes:

[yardwork]

36. Your post implies criticism of The President's decision not to prosecute torturers.

You're on thin ice. I'm sure that you didn't mean that, did you, comrade?

[truth2power]

39. ...

:P

[maryf]

37. Considering tv shows like 24

And all kinds of recent movies that show egregious torture techniques (I read recently that the army asked the producers of 24 to tone down the torture scenes), is it any wonder that some people find torture acceptable? And is this intended?

[Bluenorthwest]

40. Those who spin and defend these actions

will never get a vote from me. And they also need to shut the fuck up about their 'faith', for clearly they have no faith. Blasphemy is what that is, claiming 'faith' while rationalizing the torture of children.