• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

is torture a justifiable punishment in a first world civilized country?

torture a justifiable punishment in first world countires?

  • Yes- only for terrible crimes, followed subsequently by execution

    Votes: 8 16.7%
  • Yes, for terrible crimes, followed subsequently by life imprisonment

    Votes: 1 2.1%
  • Never, under any circumstances.

    Votes: 39 81.3%

  • Total voters
    48
yeah, well thats all fine and dandy in the mind of a psychotic but in reality land, no amount of torture is going to keep you safe at night. In-fact us torturing them might possibly just give them even more reason to do some more stupid **** just out of spite..

they'll get the point eventually. torture is a dish best served slow.
 
they'll get the point eventually. torture is a dish best served slow.

Yeah, lets just keep torturing them, and they can keep killing us, and we'll torture them some more, and they'll blow up a few hundred more people.. see the problem with this??
 
Yeah, lets just keep torturing them, and they can keep killing us, and we'll torture them some more, and they'll blow up a few hundred more people.. see the problem with this??

hmmm...good point. but, i'm a big fan of hammurabi, so that skews my kumbaya sympathies.
 
Torture proves and accomplishes nothing. It merely shows a neanderthal mentality and lack of the ability to think.

Anyone who thinks that torture will get you the information you want or will make the person being tortured or his faction change their minds is psychotically delusional.

If I beat you up or hurt you repeatedly are you going to change your mind about me? No you will only think worse of me.

Torture only makes more enemies not less. To thing otherwise is the idea of the brain dead.

There are some who might argue that we can get information out of a torture victim. Maybe but how reliable? If you were being tortured would you just say something plausible to make it stop even for the short term or actually spill the beans. This is a toss up. The down side is you only create a wheel of hate that never stops spinning. To my mind that is not the point.

Then there are the morons who say that if we torture them they will see what bad asses we are and quite being mean to us. People like that need professional help. Study after study shows this is bull****. If you want to coerse someone to help you or tell you something the better way is to try the guard/Prisoner method. I did not include the Stockholm syndrome because torture was involved there. There are other studies done where torture was not but making the prisoner totally reliant on the guard was.
 
hmmm...good point. but, i'm a big fan of hammurabi, so that skews my kumbaya sympathies.

we don't have to sit down at a camp fire and smoke a joint with them.. but torture isn't the answer, credible information rarely ever comes from it, and all it does is show the rest of the world that we are just as pathetic as the people we are trying to defeat.
 
I'm honestly not sure how to answer the poll question but I will say this: Murder, horrific violent crimes and forcible rape are not justifiable crimes to commit in first world countries.
 
Gotta love all the bleeding hearts here. SOME times bad people deserve everything possible. Is it civilized? Course not. But then if we as a species were truely civilized we wouldn't need prisons now would we? We also wouldn't be killing each other over materialistic junk.
 
Gotta love all the bleeding hearts here. SOME times bad people deserve everything possible. Is it civilized? Course not. But then if we as a species were truely civilized we wouldn't need prisons now would we? We also wouldn't be killing each other over materialistic junk.

You misread the arguments. Let me help. We don't always have the bad guy and occasionally torture an innocent person. It also damages he person who does he torturing (talked to one who can't sleep at night now), you can't care much about your own people if your support torture. And lastly, torture is largely ineffective. The odds that you have the right person with the right information is rare in and of itself. Then as you sift through the lies, we'll, you've asked too mu h time. We also know there are more effective methods. So again, support for torture is just wrong before you even get to the moral argument, and it is immoral.
 
You misread the arguments. Let me help. We don't always have the bad guy and occasionally torture an innocent person. It also damages he person who does he torturing (talked to one who can't sleep at night now), you can't care much about your own people if your support torture. And lastly, torture is largely ineffective. The odds that you have the right person with the right information is rare in and of itself. Then as you sift through the lies, we'll, you've asked too mu h time. We also know there are more effective methods. So again, support for torture is just wrong before you even get to the moral argument, and it is immoral.

Actually I think you misread my arguement. If you look back in the thread a bit I'm talking about child rapists, not terrorists.
 
Actually I think you misread my arguement. If you look back in the thread a bit I'm talking about child rapists, not terrorists.

Ok. However:

Even that is immoral. Becoming evil doesn't combat evil.
 
Ok. However:

Even that is immoral. Becoming evil doesn't combat evil.

Oh I don't know. When pedophiles and the like see what we're willing to do to them I'm quite sure that they wouldn't want the same thing done to them. So yes, in a way it does combat evil. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. And yes, I believe it should be made public.

And frankly I don't care what is immoral and what isn't when it comes to child rapists. They are the worst of the worst and deserve no compassion what so ever. Does that make me evil? :shrug: oh well. :shrug:
 
Oh I don't know. When pedophiles and the like see what we're willing to do to them I'm quite sure that they wouldn't want the same thing done to them. So yes, in a way it does combat evil. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. And yes, I believe it should be made public.

And frankly I don't care what is immoral and what isn't when it comes to child rapists. They are the worst of the worst and deserve no compassion what so ever. Does that make me evil? :shrug: oh well. :shrug:

I would count on that. Punishment only has so much power. People do bad things everywhere.

But being immoral as a people has consequences.
 
I would count on that. Punishment only has so much power. People do bad things everywhere.

But being immoral as a people has consequences.

And being too soft has consequences also. ;) And frankly I don't think that getting a roof over your head, 3 square meals a day, a bed, cable tv, library, and a gym all for free is that much of a consequence.
 
And being too soft has consequences also. ;) And frankly I don't think that getting a roof over your head, 3 square meals a day, a bed, cable tv, library, and a gym all for free is that much of a consequence.

Frankly there is something between immoral and being too soft. And prison life has things like you list not for prisoners but for the safety of guards. The state has manage justice and not revenge.
 
Frankly there is something between immoral and being too soft. And prison life has things like you list not for prisoners but for the safety of guards. The state has manage justice and not revenge.

"Safety of the Guards" is just a talking point. How hard do guards have to work if prisoners are all kept in thier cells 24/7/365? And i'm sure that I could think of a few other things that would insure obediance. And if I can you can be sure that others can also.
 
"Safety of the Guards" is just a talking point. How hard do guards have to work if prisoners are all kept in thier cells 24/7/365? And i'm sure that I could think of a few other things that would insure obediance. And if I can you can be sure that others can also.

A guard talking point? They are the ones making that case.
 
A guard talking point? They are the ones making that case.

I really don't care who says it. You keep people locked up in a jail cell, never open that door, it doesn't matter how belligerant they get. They will won't be able to get out do any any type of harm.
 
I really don't care who says it. You keep people locked up in a jail cell, never open that door, it doesn't matter how belligerant they get. They will won't be able to get out do any any type of harm.

Getting away for the worse possible people for a minute, our jails are filled with people, some not near as bad as some might assume. No one really wants to be in jail. Sure some become institutionalized and forget how to live out here, but remember there is a certain amount of good and bad in all of us. Justice isn't about abuse, revenge, or anything of the kind. we're a basicly human people. And a lot of those people will one day be released. So, we might want to consider what returns to us.
 
Ok. However:

Even that is immoral. Becoming evil doesn't combat evil.

Sometimes it takes shoving a 4 foot pole up someone's *** to teach them how in the heck they've made others feel and motivate them to stop.
 
I respectfully disagree, and believe that wastes of human life such as Jared Lee Loughner and James Holmes have given up their rights, and should have much pain inflicted onto them. Death and life in prison is just not good enough.

A man never gives up his rights to life. But the criminal does cede his right to respect....
We should not confuse justice and revenge, but we do anyway.
 
Getting away for the worse possible people for a minute, our jails are filled with people, some not near as bad as some might assume. No one really wants to be in jail. Sure some become institutionalized and forget how to live out here, but remember there is a certain amount of good and bad in all of us. Justice isn't about abuse, revenge, or anything of the kind. we're a basicly human people. And a lot of those people will one day be released. So, we might want to consider what returns to us.

There is a huge difference between a thief and a child rapist. I'm quite willing to treat a thief as a human being. A child rapist? They don't even deserve to be called feces much less human.
 
A man never gives up his rights to life. But the criminal does cede his right to respect....
We should not confuse justice and revenge, but we do anyway.

A thief deserves justice. A person that murdered thier loved one in a jealous fit of rage deserves justice. Serial killers and child rapists? They don't understand the concept of justice much less deserve it.
 
Torture is nearly always justifiable to the person doing the torturing...wouldn't you say?
 
There is a huge difference between a thief and a child rapist. I'm quite willing to treat a thief as a human being. A child rapist? They don't even deserve to be called feces much less human.

it's a rather slippery slope. Your line is there, but we make another for another, and so on. Better to simply follow humane behavior. better for all of us.
 
Back
Top Bottom