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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 21 2009, 05:45 PM (915 Views) | |
| QuirtEvans | Apr 22 2009, 06:11 PM Post #26 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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Again, since you ignored it above, how do you know someone is guilty? How do you know he's not telling you the truth? |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| ivorythumper | Apr 22 2009, 06:21 PM Post #27 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Watch out, Jeff, it's almost as if you're making a natural law (or a virtue ethic) argument there, Jeff.
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| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Jolly | Apr 22 2009, 06:26 PM Post #28 |
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Geaux Tigers!
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Independent corroboration. |
| The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros | |
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| QuirtEvans | Apr 22 2009, 06:30 PM Post #29 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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As evaluated by whom? Who plays both prosecutor and judge and jury? |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Jeff | Apr 22 2009, 06:34 PM Post #30 |
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Senior Carp
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No problem. Both Aristotle and the Stoics made virtue-ethic arguments outside a theistic context. In fact, Aquinas was copying them. |
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| Jeff | Apr 22 2009, 06:37 PM Post #31 |
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Senior Carp
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Wow. Except that practically every example ever consulted on this going back to Roman and Han Chinese times, and in particular the reporting in multiple sources on the particular case in question - KSM - say otherwise. That is why "mild" torture is already allowed under existing international law to get needed information from unwilling terrorists. Your comments fly in the face of plain common sense. |
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| Jolly | Apr 22 2009, 06:38 PM Post #32 |
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Geaux Tigers!
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You get the same information from two separate sources..perhaps one is under coercion, perhaps both are. And sometimes, the questioner may just have to go with his gut. A broken man will say anything, but a good questioner will have a good idea what is wheat and what is chaff... |
| The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros | |
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| Frank_W | Apr 22 2009, 06:43 PM Post #33 |
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Resident Misanthrope
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What I was told, was that if I was captured and tortured, to hold out for 24 hours. Lie, mislead, give name, rank, and ssn, or give the lyrics to the "Mississippi Squirrel Revival." After that, tell 'em anything they want to know, because it won't matter. After 24 hours, especially if fireteam members have been captured, the mission was considered compromised, so things would be changed automatically. Also, given the speed of modern combat, 24 hours is like a week, in conventional warfare terms. |
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Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin." Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!" | |
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| ivorythumper | Apr 22 2009, 07:01 PM Post #34 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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How do you reconcile "virtue" without any sense of telos? |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Jeff | Apr 22 2009, 07:13 PM Post #35 |
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Senior Carp
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Asked and answered many times: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dershowitz Dershowitz's 2002 article "Want to Torture? Get a Warrant" Main article: Ticking time bomb scenario Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dershowitz published an essay in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled "Want to Torture? Get a Warrant," in which he advocates the issuance of warrants permitting the torture of terrorism suspects if there were an "absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives coupled with probable cause that the suspect had such information and is unwilling to reveal it."[60][12] Dershowitz says that he is personally against the use of torture, yet he argues that authorities should be permitted to use non-lethal torture in a "ticking bomb" scenario, regardless of international legal prohibitions; that it would be less destructive to the rule of law to regulate the process than to leave such permission to the discretion of individual law-enforcement agents. He favors preventing the government from prosecuting the subject of such torture based upon information revealed during such an interrogation. Moreover, he argues: "If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, [then] it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice."[61][12] Some other civil libertarians are not persuaded by Dershowitz's rationalization for the sanctioning of torture to extract information from uncooperative captured suspected terrorists in such a hypothetical "ticking bomb" scenario. For example, Harvey A. Silverglate, co-founder (with Alan Charles Kors) of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), asserts that because, in such cases, jury nullification and executive clemency could protect law enforcement, "our legal system is perfectly capable of dealing with the exceptional hard case without enshrining the notion that it is okay to torture a fellow human being."[62] William F. Schulz, the Executive Director of the U.S. section of Amnesty International, finds Dershowitz's hypothetical ticking-bomb scenario unrealistic because, Schulz counters, it would require that "the authorities know that a bomb has been planted somewhere; know it is about to go off; know that the suspect in their custody has the information they need to stop it; know that the suspect will yield that information accurately in a matter of minutes if subjected to torture; and know that there is no other way to obtain it."[63] Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights, debating Dershowitz on CNN, argues that Dershowitz's proposal would create a "very slippery slope" and that torture would "happen under more than those exceptional circumstances. It's going to start becoming the regular, rather than the unusual."[64] James Bamford, in his column for The Washington Post of September 8, 2002, reviews Dershowitz's "idea of torture" and describes "[o]ne form of torture recommended by Dershowitz --'the sterilized needle being shoved under the fingernails'" as "chillingly Nazi-like."[17] In a debate with David D. Cole, professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Dershowitz stated: "I want to make sure that if my government ever does this horrible, terrible, extraordinary thing, that somebody takes responsibility for it and that it be out there in the open and subject to accountability,” ... “Though I understand the danger of legitimating something that should not be legitimated, on balance in a democracy, I prefer accountability".[65] The "ticking time bomb scenario" is subject of the drama The Dershowitz Protocol by Canadian author Robert Fothergill. In that play, the American government has established a protocol of "intensified interrogation" for terrorist suspects which requires participation of the FBI, CIA and the Department of Justice. The drama deals with the psychological pressure and the tense triangle of competences under the overriding importance that each participant has to negotiate the actions with his conscience. The play is directly linked to the debate caused by Dershowitz' article. |
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| Jeff | Apr 22 2009, 07:14 PM Post #36 |
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Senior Carp
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Human well being is a purely empirical matter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_naturalism |
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| Jeff | Apr 22 2009, 07:21 PM Post #37 |
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Senior Carp
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It is patently ridiculous for you to ignore Jolly's OP link. If torture didn't work, why would it already be legal (in a mild form) and why would this issue keep coming up? As I pointed out above, what people call "torture" is a matter of PR and tactics. Obama looks to be transferring Guantanamo to Bagram and will keep mild torture an option while stopping waterboarding and then loudly claiming "we don't torture" for PR effect. That's what happens when you are actually in charge of something and need results rather than repeating some half-digested philosophical position. |
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| ivorythumper | Apr 22 2009, 09:00 PM Post #38 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Oh, I think you can build an argument about what is a healthier way to live based on empirical observation of the human condition (don't steal from others, don't lie, don't renege on promises, don't try to dominate others because others can band together and kill you, etc), but you are making a "moral" argument when you speak of "the moral right not to be tortured". I don't see how this can be considered a true right (inherent in the dignity of the individual), but only a societal convention that if you cooperate with those who have power you will not be harmed. The problem with that is this "moral right" is only based on the strength of the opposition -- the stronger party gets to do whatever is necessary to coerce cooperation for whatever ends it decides. I don't see where you have a moral appeal to anything above the power to compel compliance. There can no appeal to any sort of justice that one ought to pursue, or a standard of moral behavior (or emotional detachment) that one ought to conform one's life to in order to live a well lived life as a human being (as Aristotle or the Stoics would have argued) that can be morally persuasive to the individual. It remains only on the level of brute force, and the compelling of individual actions by the powerful. I am not sure you would agree with my notion that all people have a moral obligation to comply with legitimate authorities in the preservation of the common good as a matter of justice -- even though we basically get to the same point in the end. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| blondie | Apr 22 2009, 10:27 PM Post #39 |
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Bull-Carp
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As usual, Jeffrey and others give me lots to think & re-think of this subject. I clicked on this following the link to the original article trying to learn more of KSM. Here it's implied, "The Times reported on April 20, 2009, that a 2005 Justice Department internal memo said that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Mr. Mohammed. The Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known." (I added the bolding) . To me it seems KSM was sentenced to a term of torture. This was his existence while in prison, was it not? Does this seem excessive (in quantity) to anyone here? I'm curious of people's opinions. Further, when is the line drawn so a gov't says, "Hey, okay, so he's guilty enough. So do we off him now or let him rot peacefully in some basement cell."? Again, I'm curious of what people think. |
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| QuirtEvans | Apr 23 2009, 01:32 AM Post #40 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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In other words, you torture people and see what information you get. If it turns out that you tortured the wrong guy, oh well, sh!t happens. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| QuirtEvans | Apr 23 2009, 01:34 AM Post #41 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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Still ignoring the report of the SERE trainers, I see. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| jon-nyc | Apr 23 2009, 01:49 AM Post #42 |
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Cheers
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Agreed, but that was your point, not mine. You thought my 'efficacy' point was a strawman, because the girl wasn't 'guilty', remember? |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| QuirtEvans | Apr 23 2009, 01:57 AM Post #43 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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Here's what the Bush FBI director says about whether harsh interrogation tactics stopped any new attacks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us/politics/23detain.html?_r=1&hp |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Jeff | Apr 23 2009, 03:32 AM Post #44 |
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Senior Carp
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I think Aristotle and the Stoics should be interpreted along the lines of (1). The "stronger" stuff does not follow at all if they are interpreted that way. You are conflating the question "What is morality?" and "Why be moral?". This is a standard issue when discussing Ethical Naturalism. |
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| Jeff | Apr 23 2009, 03:34 AM Post #45 |
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Senior Carp
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The times he would be tortured would have been zero, if he followed his moral obligation to tell others of his group's plans to kill many innocent people. He does not have the moral right to keep this information private. Torture is never a morally legitimate form of punishment - it is simply to get information, and it is clearly effective at that when simple discussion is not. |
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| Jeff | Apr 23 2009, 03:41 AM Post #46 |
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Senior Carp
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???? We are talking at cross purposes. My point is that KSM has no moral right to keep his information private, and his actions have removed the normal ban on physical coercion that would otherwise apply, even to guilty people. My view is consistent with *existing* international law - which allows many forms of physical coercion to get needed information (sleep deprivation, forced standing, cold, yelling, etc.), the debate being only on specific details of types of physical coercion, not the general principle. I see that Quirt still ignores this point, which destroys his position. |
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| Jeff | Apr 23 2009, 03:42 AM Post #47 |
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Senior Carp
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If it turns out more planes get flown into office buildings, oh well, stuff happens. |
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| QuirtEvans | Apr 23 2009, 04:35 AM Post #48 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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It doesn't destroy my position. I ignore it because it's silly. The fact that there is a line, and some things might be close to the line, doesn't mean that other things far away from the line aren't clear. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| QuirtEvans | Apr 23 2009, 04:37 AM Post #49 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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Maybe you should talk to your rabbi about whether it's OK to sacrifice some innocents in order to protect others. Hey, if I torture you, maybe I'll get information about terrorist attacks. We'll never know until we try, right? Maybe I could torture an entire ethnic group to see what information I might get. That's never happened in history, right? |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Mark | Apr 23 2009, 05:20 AM Post #50 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Once again I find myself in agreement with Quirt. |
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___.___ (_]===* o 0 When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells | |
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