Fuck Torture...

[walldude]

Let me make this as simple as I can since anyone who actually supports torture must have a brain the size of a fucking walnut.


Torture.. is... bad. God and Jesus hate torture. Sane people hate torture. And torture has been proven not to work. You know what does work? Treating people with dignity.
Yes even your enemies.

The cops know this all too well. When they interrogate someone and they play the good cop/bad cop game, it's not the bad cop who gets the information.

It's quite well known that torture is useless and the sooner we get back to not even entertaining a debate on this the better. What we need to be debating is how these un-evolved knuckle dragging assholes ever got in a position of power and how to make sure people like them never come back.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Well, hate radio, Fox News, and 24 certainly aren't helping

Neither are a lot of the churches.

(Remember: Their perfect god tortures people forever just for guessing wrong.)

[walldude]

5. Hehe...one day they will figure out that 24 isn't real

and I had a debate this weekend, well it was more of a shouting match with a guy who claimed he was a god fearing Christian who thinks we should nuke em' all. When I asked him how he reconciled his peaceful god with his murderous ideas, he said "god will sort them out". These idiots think foreign policy is a tee shirt quote.

[Occam Bandage]

2. I'd rather not engage in fuck torture, but I hear some people like it. nt

[JuniperLea]

3. I refer to the torture we discuss...

As Dick Cheney Torture Porn... you know he gets off on it... there is no other reason for it... disgusting perve that he is.

[walldude]

6. Well I'm all for a little light bondage...

however... only if the prisoner asks to be tied up.




Dude.. now you have me joking about torture.

[JuniperLea]

4. K&R!!

I had a RW Fundie NutJob cousin (please tell me there's one in every family) who tried to tell me I'd be boo hooing if Bush and Cheney hadn't tortured people and stopped some terrorist acts... I told him that Jesus was tortured, and last time I was in Sunday School, they thought that was a very bad thing. And Jesus said that whatever we do for these the lesser of his brothers, we do for him. So, if you want to keep on torturing Jesus, just keep torturing his brothers.

I got no reply:)

[walldude]

7. Yeah the religion thing seems to get them every time

you can't really reconcile the prince of peace with the "joys of torture".

[starroute]

8. Torture and democracy are incompatible

This is something I realized back in the 80's when South Africa was resorting to torture to protect the apartheid regime. You can have all the elections you like, but the moment you resort to torture you are no longer a democracy.

- First because your government is no longer based on the rule of law but on the rule of coercion.

- Second because citizens who know they are potentially subject to torture if they step out of line no longer enjoy freedom of thought, of action, or of belief.

On some level, I don't even care particularly whether torture works -- although it doesn't -- or whether it is immoral -- although it is. But I care profoundly that it is incompatible with democracy -- and that alone would make it unacceptable, even if it was both ethical and effective.

[Towlie]

9. The Evil That Men Do

"Human rights violations? There is no such thing. There is only the security of the state and those who'd undermine that security."

That was a line from the 1984 movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087222/">The Evil That Men Do by a character named Dr. Clement "The Doctor" Molloch, a torture expert billed as "the world's most savage executioner"; a man so evil that good guy and retired assassin Charles Bronson is sent on a mission to kill him.

Back in 1984 I'm sure nobody who saw that movie hesitated to identify "The Doctor" as one of the most evil villains to ever grace a movie screen.

But how would a loyal Republican view him today?

I wonder.

[sohndrsmith]

10. It's not only bad, it's illegal. The idiocy that is Cheney et al, saying

it is/was justified because it worked (sometimes) is just ludicrous.

...murder "works",
...blackmail "works",
...violence and abuse "works",
...bribery "works",
...drug dealing "works",

People do these things because they want the desired result. BUT, they are all illegal and carry serious consequences/penalties for those who choose to engage in such activities.
Because dealing drugs can be lucrative (successful) doesn't justify doing it.

Using this way of thinking, the only time crimes or violations of the law deserve prosecution is when they fail. The bank robber who ends up with nothing. The murderer who's victim survives. The drug dealer who can't make any sales.

Torture is illegal in this country. No matter who is behind it.

The idea that there is discussion about the group of lawyers being prosecuted seems ludicrous to me, too. At the risk of wearing out my analogies, this is akin to the DEA nabbing the street-level dealers who work for the trafficker who's supplied through a major cartel and saying, "Cool! We got these little guys so we don't have to concern ourselves with the big guys they work for. We're done here."

This is insanity. If we prosecute the lawyers and ignore those who directed them to write arguments for specific desired results, then we are a bunch of idiots. The ones at the top - without whom these directives could not exist - should hold the most culpability, and the priority of our focus. Then we can go after their street dealers...

Crime or violence isn't justified just because it works. I hope the highest-level actors have to answer to their crimes. Yes, I'm talking about those at the very, very top. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. We're losing focus with all the nitpick-y arguments when the evidence is documented and undeniable...