To start, I believe there are absolutely situations where torture would be justified. Personally, I believe that a violent criminals rights should come only after the safety of the rest of society. But in what situation would torture be justified, and/or reliable? Well, we all know that people will say anything to get the pain to stop. So to torture a person trying to obtain information about what is happening tomorrow, or next week, or who will be where when, etc etc is probably not going to wield to much fruit or be super reliable. However, there are situations were the information we need is pertinent to our safety and can be quickly and easily verified. Hypothetical situation. A little girl gets kidnapped and has 24 hours before she needs some life sustaining medication. The kidnapper is on video and immediately located. Assuming the girl is still alive, we need to get to the little girl quickly in order to save her. The kidnapper refuses to give information. At what point does the little girls right to life, trump his "rights"? In this situation if he refuses to give information I believe torture would easily be justified. The information he gives can be quickly and easily verified by sending a unit to check. If he lies...torture him again...and again and eventually it is very very likely he is going to give up where the girl is. Now this is clearly an extreme situation, but in this particular situation it is very likely that without forcing him to give the information via torture, the little girl would die. So in my opinion in a very limited few situations where the safety of a citizen or citizens is concerned, and the information obtained can quickly and easily be verified or falsified, I believe torture is justified. Certainly the devil is in the details. Some may believe it is barbaric. However I believe it is barbaric to allow the death of innocent people due to some misguided ideology.
Torture, as by what measure? To some, opera music is torturous, while to others it is soothing. To some, being beat with a horse whip and their nippers pinched with c-clips is even what they prefer over butterfly kisses and gentle caresses. Perhaps, it may be more important to better understand the individual human mind at work?
It depends on what you call torture. Things like sleep deprivation are effective tools in extracting information from those that want to kill us. The Iron Maiden or the Pear, not so much.
The vast majority of people find pain to be unpleasant and at high levels to be intolerable. Probably above 99.99 percent. So I really fail to see what relevance this question has, I mean some amount of common sense needs to be applied...we live in a world full of times where we have to make decisions based on incomplete information so I find it hard to see how people function in our society when they cant even equate torture to physical pain. And as far as understanding the human mind, absolutely that is great lets do that. But that isn't an argument against torture. - - - Updated - - - The vast majority of people find pain to be unpleasant and at high levels to be intolerable. Probably above 99.99 percent. So I really fail to see what relevance this question has, I mean some amount of common sense needs to be applied...we live in a world full of times where we have to make decisions based on incomplete information so I find it hard to see how people function in our society when they cant even equate torture to physical pain. And as far as understanding the human mind, absolutely that is great lets do that. But that isn't an argument against torture.
Err, is there an echo in here? I gotcha, howeversobeit, as we each live within our own little bubbles of reality, individuality is not always as well defined as you may suggest. "Probably above 99.99 percent..." may not have a clue what they actually cannot tolerate or find intolerable because, um, well.... we have this grand illusion of being protected by little more than our current comforts. So many things come to mind that will likely fail any comparisons you would prefer to bring to the proverbial table, but one being cutters who cut to "bleed out" because of variant degrees of emotional/mental trauma. Now, not only does such a mind carry the potential of turning the sensory perception of the cutting into a possible pleasurable, even erotic experience, there is a level of conceivable narcissism where such an individual will feel denied, even rejected if the course of action is not understood to be therapeutic. Aye, I see a rise of pick axes and crosses danging as I'm about to be exorcized, but there are many forms of "cutting". Hence, tattooing, piercing, surgeries...... etc. ugh.... so, I see another poster has my Huckleberry motto, that leaves me with no adequate ending.
Those cutters who cut to bleed out are committing suicide. Not trying to simply hurt themselves in most cases. And those who are still have a pain tolerance with a limit. And again this is a small percentage of people so it is still not an argument against torture. But out of curiousity, are you trying to suggest that I am wrong about the notion that almost everyone finds pain unpleasurable, specifically ALOT of pain? I guess people will do anything to play devil's advocate lolol. Speaking of living in a bubble lol.
I'm done here. Not playing the advocate for an entity that has no bigger ally than his perceived opponent. As for suggesting you are wrong, however, no, yet... I would encourage you to consider that the truth you represent is more multifaceted than you may be comfortable in acknowledging. [video]https://youtu.be/vdED3rVgIu4[/video]
Dear [MENTION=71711]Crcata[/MENTION] There are negotiators who know how to talk with criminally minded people and get them to cooperate and confess, voluntarily. I would develop more support in that area, which is more likely to succeed if it is possible at all, and less likely to create legal or logistic complications. Some people LIE to get out of torture, so that can backfire. If we invest in R&D to perfect this process of diagnosing and communicating with dangerously ill people, it will also help with future prevention. Just torturing or killing the person doesn't help us learn and understand, as needed to save more lives in the future.
The points you brought up served no purpose. So you should not be surprised. I'm well aware of all sides of this. Which is why I'm arguing not that it's always justified, but occasionally absolutely is. I have yet to see why not. - - - Updated - - - Indeeed. Unless you wish to point out how I havent?
Torture is generally defined by action instead of what is dissatisfying or displeasing to the punished. The mind of the individual is what determines any action to be torturous. Delve further into that direction, perhaps. I'm not intentionally critiquing your pathology into adequate written presentation, but that angle would draw my attention and perhaps many others. To go into torture as it is, you are up against many things that have been buried under tradition, history, and pointless but heavy laden laws of personal preservation. To a surprising number of the AVERAGE person, reading and actually reading with comprehension is torturous.
` ` I do not believe torture is moral or ethical. However, there are times I'd like to see "cruel and unusual punishment" like in the case of child sexual assaults and murder.
Ok I can understand that. But is it not immoral or unethical to not do any and everything you can to save an innocent persons life at the expense of the person trying to take thier life?
Every torturing state has found its reasons and justifications of torture, and there is nothing remotely new in these justifications. Every torturing state uses extraordinary circumstances to justify what it wants to do to acquire knowledge. Nothing new there either. We are essentially no different from any other country that gives its government the right to torture to extract information. No different from the Saudis, the communists, the Iranians, the Nazis, the Chinese or anyone else. Lets not pretend we are, by fine tuning a philosophical argument when that argument is always completely irrelevant once torture is excused. We all know what will happen when we give any government a right to torture, with all those bells and whistles of protocols and policies. They turn out to be as pliable as play dough and the resulting abuses hidden from public eyes that really don't want to see anyway.
I care not about who else or what other country does or doesn't. But from what I'm getting out of this is you distrust the government with that kind of responsibility? Fair enough. Agree to disagree I suppose. - - - Updated - - - I agree but that didn't really answer my question.
` You asked the wrong question then. However, to clear up my present answer, I suppose it depends on how you look at it.
What goes around, comes around. I don't generally support torture because as a retired soldier I don't want to see our guys tortured. Does it work? Yes. Colonel Nick Rowe, who commanded the Army's SERE school, who spent five years as a POW, who loved Jane Fonda, told me that you will tell them what they want to know. He said to try and hold out for 24 hours.
This is exactly the reason that I hold carefully onto a certain and specifically detailed and methodical approach. If torture is strictly defined as action(s), alone, it leaves many detrimental aspects left unsaid. As a mother, my heart gets trippy and my mind warps to know such potentially would ever happen, however, as a wife..... that's of a different order.
If torture is ok why is it not ok for every crime? The police withold the details of even the most famous crimes. If a suspect can reveal details that only the perp would now then you have your man. The next question is do we want a society like this? What happens if you torture an innocent man? Do you just release him and say you're sorry?
Torture has been proven to be the most unreliable form of interrogation throughout the history of mankind and it's never justifiable. As General James "Mad Dog" Mathis, Trump's selection for Sect. of Defense, made Donald Trump that's advocated the use of torture, rethink his position and Trump related to the NY Times. http://www.businessinsider.com/james-mattis-trump-torture-2016-11 Interrogators have long known that securing a personal one-on-one trust that can be accomplished even with most radical "enemy" is the fastest and most reliable means of obtaining very accurate information. Torture virtually always results in extremely unreliable information. For example, KLM was subjected to waterboarding repeatedly by the Bush administration and it resulted in the Bush administration believing a lie the KSM repeated that took the Bush administration away from possibly finding Osama bin Laden. Under the Obama administration another source for information on locating Bin Laden was interrogated differently and correctly where the interrogator established "trust" with the detainee. The information obtained was 100% accurate and directly lead to locating Bin Laden. If we want accurate and reliable information then torture should never even be considered because it always fails to provide accurate information. Arguably the only rationalization for torture is to obtain sexual gratification with the sadistic behavior of imposing pain upon another person. It has no other useful purpose.
And what if the torture results in death as it did in at least eight cases of "homicide" (as determined by the autopsy reports) in Afghanistan predominately from hypothermia using the "cold cell" treatment authorized under the "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized by the Bush administration. We also know that torture by a person working under the "color of law" for our government is a felony that can result in penalties up to and including the death penalty under U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 113C › ยง 2340. Torture is defined as follows under federal criminal law. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-113C Every single "enhance interrogation technique" authorized by the Bush administration was "torture" based upon this definition that addresses cases of torture outside of the United States by people working "under the color of law" for the United States and every single one of those involved, from the lowly CIA person or security person committing the act of torture all of the way up to President Bush himself should have been prosecuted for the documented deaths of at least eight detainees that were tortured and died from the torture.
Didn't work for the Bush administration. No useful intelligence was ever gained by the use of torture by the Bush administration while a lot of misinformation that wasted government intelligence resources for years was obtained through the use of torture.
