ThatDamnedPanda
Posts: 6060
Joined: 1/26/2009 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: TheHeretic I'm a sadist, Panda, in a very happy relationship with a masochist. I torture for fun frequently.  Yeah, I know, but that's not... ah, fergit. You know what I mean! quote:
ORIGINAL: TheHeretic In the context of this discussion though, no, I'm not advocating for torture as a routine sort of thing. I'd be perfectly happy with it being a legend, and only spoken of in whispers. Ever heard the stories some parents tell of the day their ___ came home from school and announced that spankings are illegal? I don't want to encourage that sort of cockiness when captured enemies sit down with the "good cop." What's that Jack Nicholson line from "A Few Good Men?" Something like, "On the record, I disapprove of Code Reds, and do not allow them in my unit. Off the record, I will tell you that it is an invaluable part of military training, and essential to small-unit discipline." Something like that. I've probably got it wrong, cuz it's been too long since I've seen that movie, but even if I have the quote messed up a bit it still illustrates the point. I know this is going to sound as though I'm contradicting myself, but I know that torture is going to happen, and I accept that. I don't approve of it, but I know that it's an imperfect world, and you're never going to be able to completely prevent non-coms and junior officers from sometimes overstepping their bounds. People are human. Where I have a problem is with the Commander in Chief deciding to make it official national policy. The minute the country says, "Ok, we approve of this, this is who we are now," America becomes a different nation. We've lost something we can never get back, taken a step in a direction the Founding Fathers would have been horrified to see us go. And once you start down that road, it's pretty damned hard to get back on the path you used to travel, the path that always led away from where this one leads to. What's on the other end of that direction is a whole host of things that are directly, 180 degrees opposed to everything this country was supposed to stand for. How long before a country that condones torturing terrorism suspects decides it's really not that big a deal to start torturing murder suspects? And then, armed robbery suspects? And then burglary suspects? Where does it stop? A country that considers torture an acceptable tool to obtain information has opened a whole new door, has removed one of the barriers that stand between a civilized society and a tribe of barbarians. And once that barrier has been removed, it's forever after only a question of how far in that direction we're going to go in any given circumstance. That's the problem I have. It's the kind of unclean that you can never really wash off. quote:
ORIGINAL: TheHeretic I will completely agree that the non-fun-loving sort of torture is a very bad thing, with awful consequences. Shouldn't happen. I will not agree that there is nothing that could possibly be a greater evil, though. Put enough innocent lives on the line, values have to adjust to each other. Let's put it this way, Rich. If this were a different thread, with a different title - like, say, "How Far Would You Go If You Had A Terrorist Who Knew Where A Nuclear Bomb Was Going To Go Off?" - we might be having a very different discussion.
< Message edited by ThatDamnedPanda -- 5/23/2009 7:01:43 PM >
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Panda, panda, burning bright In the forest of the night What immortal hand or eye Made you all black and white and roly-poly like that?
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