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Started by Beorning, September 21, 2014, 07:02:11 AM

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TheGlyphstone

A suspect in New York resists arrest, and is only carried out on a stretcher instead of in a body bag? Lucky man.

LisztesFerenc

Quote from: Lustful Bride on September 19, 2016, 10:55:35 AM
If it saves even 1 civilian life, I say it is worth it.

  And how many more civilians will die when terrorists use the fact that the USA employs torture techniques as a recruiting tool? I thought this discussion already happened, and the conclusion was torture does not yield the information to justify the ramifications of a democracy using such techniques. There was an obscenely long document published about it.

Oniya

Quote from: Lustful Bride on September 19, 2016, 10:55:35 AM
If it saves even 1 civilian life, I say it is worth it.

And what of the innocents who are tortured just because someone doesn't like what they look like.  Or thought they were 'putting a strain on the community's resources'?  Or didn't like the things they said, or who they slept with?

Don't think that could happen here?
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TheGlyphstone

Or the innocents who die as a result of false information gained from torturees who say what they think the interrogators want to hear?

Lustful Bride

Alright alright I have an unpopular opinion I understand. @_@

TheGlyphstone

Not that we hold it against you, though.

Lustful Bride

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on September 19, 2016, 12:45:21 PM
Not that we hold it against you, though.

And I don't hold yours against you either. If anything I envy you. You got your morals and you are holding onto them with a bear grip.

Me? Id probably be the villain of any cheesy movie :P

Beguile's Mistress

There just isn't a good or right answer to it as long as people use fear and pain to make their point anywhere in the world.

TheGlyphstone

#4283
Quote from: Lustful Bride on September 19, 2016, 12:49:07 PM
And I don't hold yours against you either. If anything I envy you. You got your morals and you are holding onto them with a bear grip.

Me? Id probably be the villain of any cheesy movie :P

It's not (just) about morals for me, it's cold-blooded effectiveness. Torture has been proven repeatedly and consistently to be a very inefficient and unreliable method of gaining intelligence. If I thought it actually worked, I wouldn't be against it.

The moral argument is a separate concern. Losing a hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand lives to save one life is not a trade I think is worthwhile, even if that one life is American and those thousand lives are not. Ultimately, you're still down more innocent victims than you are up dead perpetrators, which isn't a sustainable equation.

Guancyto

#4284
To the point where even the Mossad were telling the CIA, "hey, guys, you should really knock off this 'torture program' thing, it's really not working for you."

If the Mossad are telling you to quit torturing terrorists, you might have a problem.

Aside from being cartoonishly evil, torture is really only effective as a political tool for garnering confessions. Even the Russians and the Chinese, no slouches for experience with the practice, don't use it for trying to gather actual intelligence. But hey, if you want someone to confess to a crime, or a plot against the CCCP or Putin, or that there's a link between Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government, and you don't care whether or not it's true (or are actively putting your fingers in your ears and humming loudly whenever anybody points out that it is 100% false), that's the best method.

It does not, has not, and will not ever save lives anywhere except on TV. Not even one.

Aethereal

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on September 19, 2016, 01:24:12 PM
It's not (just) about morals for me, it's cold-blooded effectiveness. Torture has been proven repeatedly and consistently to be a very inefficient and unreliable method of gaining intelligence. If I thought it actually worked, I wouldn't be against it.

The moral argument is a separate concern. Losing a hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand lives to save one life is not a trade I think is worthwhile, even if that one life is American and those thousand lives are not. Ultimately, you're still down more innocent victims than you are up dead perpetrators, which isn't a sustainable equation.
Just to reiterate: torture does *not* work. You will get false convictions from people just because they want the torture to stop. Heck, police investigations are regularly enough to whittle innocent people down to the point where they will freely lie that they are guilty to make their torment end.

     So in the end, you'll just have a false information and are guilty of a heinous crime yourself. As soon as you lay your hands on even one innocent person in the name of saving another, you'll be no better than the people you're trying to convict. Hand to my heart, if I was saved at the cost of even just one such innocent "collateral", I would have no more respect to my "saviours" than I would have towards who got me out of there (and probably not a lot if no innocents were harmed, either). Maybe the criminal in that was at least less of a hypocrite. Never mind that I'd be forever indebted to whoever was falsely tortured, just by virtue of it being me for whom they (if involuntarily) suffered for.

     Just imagine yourself being dragged off to be tortured in order to make you confess a crime you were thus far unaware of. Or your spouse. Or your child. How long would you last while being tortured before you'd start making up things just to make the torture stop (maybe you're unusually strong, but be aware that the overwhelming majority would break sooner or later)? How long would your child/SO? Would you retract your position once it became personal, or would you wholehandedly support the torture of a person you know and love, no matter how unlikely you know them to be the perpetrator?

TaintedAndDelish

Regarding the brazen bull comment, that was meant more tongue in cheek and as a form of revenge and public punishment, not as a means of actually gathering information. No, something like that would not sit well with most civilized folks today and would be more likely to cause chaos and rioting.

I don't buy the argument that torture is completely useless. If it was, we wouldn't teach soldiers to resist torture and would have no need for the L-Pill or Kill Pill. If there is a need to train soldiers to resist torture, then torture must work to some extent. Yes, tortured people will lie if they think it will get them out of hot water, but they may spill something useful in the process . Just as dumpster divers go through trash knowing that most of what they will find is crap, they do so knowing that there may be one useful find that makes the entire dive worthwhile.

As much as I hate government dishonesty (and I really do), I think the government needs to use torture where appropriate and lie to the public about it so that people don't get all sympathetic and freak out over it.  War is ugly - probably a lot uglier than most of us choose to believe.

LisztesFerenc

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on September 19, 2016, 05:38:35 PMI don't buy the argument that torture is completely useless. If it was, we wouldn't teach soldiers to resist torture and would have no need for the L-Pill or Kill Pill. If there is a need to train soldiers to resist torture, then torture must work to some extent.

  I'm reasonably certain resisting torture techniques is at least as much to do with coming out of the experience mentally scared rather than resisting the interrogation. That and not breaking, as videotape of a broken enemy combatant is a powerful propaganda tool. The fact that soldiers are trained to resist torture only really proves there is a non-negligible chance they will be subject to it, not that torture works as a way to get information.

Anteros

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Lustful Bride

Syrian Cease Fire comes to an end as unknown Airstrike destroys Aid convoy. (It is unknown whether it was Russian or Syrian airforce that destroyed the convoy)

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/air-strikes-hit-aid-convoy-as-syria-says-ceasefire-over/ar-BBwm76k?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

Blythe


Anteros

ONS & OFFS: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=14923.0

I stand with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the North Dakota Access Pipeline https://www.facebook.com/ajplusengli...0139732127536/
Please sign the petition: https://t.co/42VMYy7WzA


Aethereal

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on September 19, 2016, 05:38:35 PMI think the government needs to use torture where appropriate and lie to the public about it so that people don't get all sympathetic and freak out over it.  War is ugly - probably a lot uglier than most of us choose to believe.
There is no "appropriate" in that topic. One day, it's some guy, another it's you. Don't you dare think you'd have a modicum of safety in a country that finds it acceptable to take such action - though once you come to realize it, it'd most likely be too late for you (oh, and did you really think they'd let you go home with their "lie to people" regime, should they find you innocent?).

     It's less sympathy and more protecting yourself and the people close to you.

TheGlyphstone

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist..."

Etc., etc.

Ariel

Quote from: Anteros on September 19, 2016, 06:47:29 PM
Dash cam video shows unarmed black man with hands in air before Tulsa police shoot him dead: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/09/dash-cam-video-shows-unarmed-black-man-with-hands-in-air-before-tulsa-police-shoot-him-dead/

I'm so sick and tired of seeing these headlines. </3
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la dame en noir

Quote from: Anteros on September 19, 2016, 06:47:29 PM
Dash cam video shows unarmed black man with hands in air before Tulsa police shoot him dead: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/09/dash-cam-video-shows-unarmed-black-man-with-hands-in-air-before-tulsa-police-shoot-him-dead/

I have a friend from Oklahoma who can say for sure that she knew this man was a preacher and only called for assistance on his broken down car on the way home from school.

They shot him dead.

I'm so tired of this.
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TaintedAndDelish


I have to disagree on a few points here. Understand, that I am not making a moral argument. I'm thinking about this in a more tactical way.

Quote from: Shienvien on September 20, 2016, 12:22:09 PM
     There is no "appropriate" in that topic. One day, it's some guy, another it's you. Don't you dare think you'd have a modicum of safety in a country that finds it acceptable to take such action - though once you come to realize it, it'd most likely be too late for you (oh, and did you really think they'd let you go home with their "lie to people" regime, should they find you innocent?).

     It's less sympathy and more protecting yourself and the people close to you.

1. I think it's the situation that determines whether or not torture is moral or immoral. If by torturing an enemy who has critical information, you are able to prevent a massacre, then torturing that person for the needed information was moral - assuming there wasn't another equally effective way to accomplish the goal in time. In this specific case, it's being used as tool for extracting critical information. This should not be confused with using torture as a means of punishment, political suppression or for just keeping captured people miserable.

2. How do you know that your country does not torture people?  If the leaders of your country have the ability to keep secrets from you, then your knowledge of what they are doing is limited to what they choose to tell you. How then, can you be "safe" given your argument?

3. Like businesses and individuals, governments need to be able to keep secrets. If they couldn't, then they would get stomped on and screwed by everyone else.  People have secrets too like: where you keep your money, your passwords to your phone or email account, your own private thoughts and your decision making criteria and preferences.

On the flip side, I really do dislike the idea of the government lying to it's people and the thought that they could choose to turn on them if they felt that the ends justified the means.



Anteros

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Lustful Bride

#4298
Quote from: Anteros on September 20, 2016, 08:23:44 PM
‘You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake.’ Fliers like these are showing up on lawns across the U.S. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/20/you-can-sleep-tonight-knowing-the-klan-is-awake-fliers-like-these-are-showing-up-on-lawns-across-the-u-s/?postshare=4351474385969446&tid=ss_tw

How nice of the clan to provide so much Toilet Paper for everyone. :P I guess even sociopaths can do good from time to time.

An Attack in Kashmir leads to heated tensions between India and Pakistan.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/20/modi-news-india-pakistan-tensions-mount-after-attack-in-kashmir.html

Anteros

ONS & OFFS: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=14923.0

I stand with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the North Dakota Access Pipeline https://www.facebook.com/ajplusengli...0139732127536/
Please sign the petition: https://t.co/42VMYy7WzA