How Torture Betrays America

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Note -- please excuse the 'mainstream' tone of this article, it's intended for wider distribution than just Discordians

It's a hotly debated topic lately. Should we torture suspected terrorists when they might give up information leading to a deadly attack on Americans (or American interests)? Most people I talk to seem to think that if it ultimately saves lives then it is unfortunate but justified. Personally, I can't seem to reconcile that opinion with my understanding of what America is supposed to be.

Putting aside for now that when a person is tortured, they will say anything to make the torture stop -- which makes any information gained from torturing a person extremely unreliable -- there is a much larger question when it comes to the use of (and eventually the reliance on) torture as a means of intelligence gathering and threat deterrence. And even if we gain reliable information from a tortured suspect -- even if it results in saved American lives -- we cannot ignore this question.

Do we believe everything the Founding Fathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence? Do we really believe what Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense? Do we, as a nation, still have any faith in reason, in civility, and in the existence of inalienable Human rights? Do we still believe that suspected criminals are innocent until proven guilty?

These questions form the core of what America is -- a free nation, where everyone has a chance. Our dealings with foreigners have for most of our history followed the same model. Now, with the question of torture, we must reexamine these beliefs to see if they are still relevant in today's world.

Are America's good intentions and high-minded rhetoric of any practical value? If we must resort to torture to defend ourselves, then the answer is no. If, for our own survival, we must violate the philosophies we hold dear as a free nation, then we are deluding ourselves. If universal respect for everyone -- including our enemies -- is a weakness in a time of war or danger, then it is a false hope. If America embraces torture as a valid means of self-defense, then America admits that all of the things we have fought for over two centuries -- universal equality, Human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion -- are not worth really believing in.

Can we rely on our honor, integrity, and our sacred ideals to carry our nation through difficult times? Or are those ideals worthless and disposable when we are faced with the difficult decision between saving lives and staying true to ourselves? Can we depend on freedom to justify and defend itself, or must we resort to tyranny and barbarism to secure it? The way we answer this question as a nation will define who we are as a people, more loudly and more permanently than any resolution passed by a band of rebels two centuries ago.

[Cain]

What you fail to understand is that torture is qualitively different when America engages in it because it is a Departure from Universal Principles normally held by the USA, rhetorically inflated by exaggerating Humanitarian NGOs - principles gifted to humanity by the Americans, who deserve to be cut a little slack because Terrorists Are Bad.


I'm actually really out of touch with the "torture debate", except to note John McCain was against waterboarding before he was for it, and I'm even more out of touch with the so-called thinking processes of the electorate, so I am of little use in this thread.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

First, I am in favor of articles written for a more "mainstream" audience... I see no need for apology.

Second, the on-paper lofty ideals of the US founding fathers have never, through history, been upheld. The fact that the legal status of US atrocities are finally being eroded to reflect reality should be no surprise to anyone who is familiar with US indian policy, overt and covert, for the entire history of this nation. Sadly, the number of US citizens who are familiar with this history, or even that of slavery, are pitifully few.

The means which the US has consistently used to justify atrocities has historically simply been to adjust the definition of "person". In a more human-rights oriented world, the adjustment of who is a "person" is no longer quite as semantically justifiable, so instead of being hypocritical about who exactly is covered by the US Constitution, the US has to resort to adjusting its laws in order to continue with exactly the same degree of human rights violations it has always engaged in.

This bitter country is as it has always been; free only for the elite.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Well my purpose in writing this stuff isn't really to reflect accurate history or illustrate a fall from grace, but to help people to think about this kind of thing in the first place. It's pure rhetoric like they are using, no more or less true. For most people, there is only what the news and general consensus tell them. For most people, that will never change. But for some, reading something like this might at least plant a seed of doubt in their blind, arrogant faith in the way things are.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I totally see your point, and I'm in favor of it.

[Cain]

Well my purpose in writing this stuff isn't really to reflect accurate history or illustrate a fall from grace, but to help people to think about this kind of thing in the first place. It's pure rhetoric like they are using, no more or less true. For most people, there is only what the news and general consensus tell them. For most people, that will never change. But for some, reading something like this might at least plant a seed of doubt in their blind, arrogant faith in the way things are.

Might it be better to appeal to their more base nature?

For example, take the most insanely hated political personality in America who [target demographic] believes are capable of anything.  Then point out how they will have the power to torture [hated group] if they should so want.  Take great pains to point out that terms do not last forever and [hated political party this politician belongs to] will eventually be back in power.  You can mix and match them, based on primary voting data, if you wanted, to make it more accurate.

Only crazy people care about principles.  Most ordinary people care about themselves and their close network of families and friends - not abstract ideals.  Therefore, pointing out, for example, that Hillary Clinton will likely have the power to detain and torture people without charge and no legal limits will scare the shit out of some Limbaugh listening dumbfuck far more than appealing to a Constitution he doesn't know and a history he wasn't taught.  So long as you frame it in a way that the target comes around to valuing institutional checks, then all is good.

[guest7654]

We DO NOT torture!!!

[Pope Lecherous]

Putting aside for now that when a person is tortured, they will say anything to make the torture stop -- which makes any information gained from torturing a person extremely unreliable -- there is a much larger question when it comes to the use of (and eventually the reliance on) torture as a means of intelligence gathering and threat deterrence. And even if we gain reliable information from a tortured suspect -- even if it results in saved American lives -- we cannot ignore this question.

This is the biggest consideration when getting info from a source.  Then comes the slippery slope when you have a complete badass in custody.  He has what you need, everyone knows it, he just won't talk.  If the only thing that could break such an individual was watching his family being tortured,  I could seriously envision people discussing this shit.  Retards on TV debating on this subject.  Kinda sad...

[Nast]

I know, I hate it when people talk about things like that. Like they're not even concerned with the morality of it, but only if it would be tactically viable.

It's just such a depressing world sometimes.

[LMNO]

What pisses me off is that a Supreme Court Justice (yeah, it was Alito, but still) used the argument of the "ticking time bomb", which has been roundly and widely dismissed as a scenario that could occur anywhere except in the movies. (Citation: http://www.alternet.org/rights/41648/ ; also, google "ticking time bomb fallacy", and take your pick).

That the highest judicial branch of government can't tell the difference between fact and fiction gets that little part of my brain to twitch, the part that holds the line between laughing and screaming...

[Doktor Loki]

What pisses me off is that a Supreme Court Justice (yeah, it was Alito, but still) used the argument of the "ticking time bomb", which has been roundly and widely dismissed as a scenario that could occur anywhere except in the movies. (Citation: http://www.alternet.org/rights/41648/ ; also, google "ticking time bomb fallacy", and take your pick).

That the highest judicial branch of government can't tell the difference between fact and fiction gets that little part of my brain to twitch, the part that holds the line between laughing and screaming...

You really think he cant tell the difference?  I think he can, but doesnt, because he knows that most other people cant.
Still, laughing and screaming, I'm with you there.

[Jasper]

He is either suffering senility or is paid to act like he is.

[Jack of Turnips]

Moral questions are not necessarily logical. In the classic experiment, people are asked what they would do if a runaway train were about to kill five people on the main track, but if diverted to a side track would only kill one person. The respondents nearly always choose to divert the train onto the siding and kill the one guy.

However, if asked what they would do if five patients are dying for want of various organs, and sacrificing one man would supply all the necessary organs, they nearly always refuse to kill the one guy.

The math is the same. The morality is different.

Torture only gets a bad rap because it is cruel, unjust, vile, reprehensible, evil, anti-life, and stupid. Other than that it's OK, I suppose.

Thank God America has leaders who are cruel, unjust, vile, reprehensible, evil, anti-life, and stupid! Whew. We sure dodged a bullet there.

There's an old story: Basham, king of the Gebenaites, feared weevils would get into the grainfields. So he organized the Gebenaites into expeditionary forces, and they spent all summer patrolling neighboring lands and stomping on bugs. But when they returned to Gebena at harvest-time they found that their wheat was dead because there had been no one to water the fields. Being as it was bronze-age Palestine and they were a Biblical folk, they were free to act with extreme savagery: they grabbed Basham and threw him into a pit filled with rabid, slavvering minges.

Of course his mortal shrieks didn't keep them from starving, but it made them feel better.

Sane nations like Sweden don't spend billions of dollars stomping on foreign insects. As a result the Swedes are well-educated, have excellent health care, eat plenty of turnips, and the King of Sweden has not been torn apart by minges.

I think there's a lesson in there somewhere. I don't know what it is, though.