Two thoughts about torture

[Donald Ian Rankin]

1) There are some situations where torturing someone is the right thing to do.
2) Torture should always be illegal, even in the above situations.

I suspect that 1) will raise some hackles, but think for a second first.

I think that the proportion of people who would attempt to beat the location of a kidnapped loved one out of someone who had buried them alive, or would be sympathetic to others who do so, is quite high; such situations very seldom arise outside of ethics textbooks and the cinema, but they do exist, so I don't think "torture is never, under any circumstances, defensible" is a sensible position.

However, I think that even in such situations, doing so should be illegal. It's possible that if I were a judge or a juryman in such a case, I might choose to interpret the law leniently or creatively, but the person should still come to trial.

If torture is ever legalised, its inevitable that it will be applied too widely. The only way to limit it is to ensure that people don't use torture unless they feel the cause is important enough to risk going to jail for themselves.

[treestar]

1. I don't think it is true that hurting someone or torturing them really

makes them tell the truth about anything. The idea you can force someone to tell the truth by hurting them is not true. In medieval times, they used torture to get the person to repent (turn Catholic or Protestant or whatever the torturer wanted). That may have worked. But as far as the knowledge each person has in their own mind, it is theirs completely, no matter how evil they may be. And there is always the chance the torturer is mistaken that the victim even knows the answer.

[Hydra]

2. That's why torture can NEVER be legal or acceptable

Because any schmuck can make up an excuse that a jury or a judge will excuse.

Either we support torture, or we don't. Which is it?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. We torture, of course.

In any civilisation, there will always be instances of torture, no matter how illegal and how heavily punished it is.

The question is how thoroughly we discourage it, not whether we can stop it completely or not.

My answer is that torture should never ever be legal, and is almost never acceptable.

I don't think "any schmuck can make up an excuse that a jury or a judge will excuse" is an accurate statement.

[Hydra]

8. You don't think people will make excuses that will get them off?

Bush was the schmuck I was thinking of, and it worked for him.

I say we completely discourage it. If we borrow your idea of legal consequences, let's go for an eye for an eye.

You torture someone, you are tortured the same way. If they die under torture, you are tortured to death.

BTW, it's not "Civilization" when people torture. It's a group of people being ruled.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. Actually,

what Bush did was commit torture, but called it something else. Torture is illegal, "enhanced interrogation" isn't.

[Hydra]

14. And the behavior is codified, much to his chagrin

Waterboarding and the other "enhanced techniques" they are using were considered war crimes in previous eras...and we agreed with that at the time when it was our enemies doing it.

It doesn't matter what he calls it for PR reasons. He tortures people for his amusement, and we let him do it.

[Kelvin Mace]

15. You and I call it torture,

the war criminals don't

[DearAbby]

3. There is no reason to torture

the information gained from torture is not reliable...case in point. Women in the middle ages confessed to being broom-flying, barking at the moon, satan screwing witches, after being tortured...were they really?

It is barbaric to torture, there is no reason other than to terrorize.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. You're confusing two different meanings of "unreliable", I think.

A torturer can make a torturee say what they want to say.

That does mean that information extracted under torture should never be taken as evidence in a court of law (although I don't think that's the most compelling reason why it shouldn't be).

But it doesn't mean that torture can't be used to extract accurate information.

Just that one can't be certain afterwards if it has been.

I refer you back to the example I provided in my OP.

[azul]

9. Right, torture is a weapon of terrorists, but also of war profiteers

in that it propagates outrage and hatred and revenge and war. Which lead to actual weapons sales, etc. Torture causes divisions amongst peoples, which can be exploited by daring adventure capitalists.

[NightWatcher]

5. forget "human rights" TORTURE DOESNT WORK

it provides bad info.

If you strap electrodes to my cojones, I'll admit to anything, thus letting the real offender get away with it.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. See my post #6.

I fully agree that using torture to extract confessions is never justifiable, though.

[azul]

13. Proven ineffective, yet the lies that it works are continuing

in the media and in congressional testimony by apologists and abettors in crime. And dupes that lie for their military/business sponsors in this corruption are thriving. The sell-outs are rewarded with jobs and money.

The propaganda peddling liars are threats to our national security: real terrorists?

[Kelvin Mace]

10. If you are prepared to "beat" information out of someone

in order to save lives, then you ought to be willing to plead guilty to the crime and take your punishment.

If the lives are that important to you, what's the problem?

If you create a law which allows torture, you open the floodgates and torture WILL be common.

Actually, since torture is now legal in this country (as long as you call it "enhanced interrogation"), the point is moot.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. I pray I'm never in a situation where I have to decide, but quite possibly.

NT