• 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!

Do you support torture?

Do you support torture?

  • Total voters
    109
SheWolf said:
Trump has been know to make supportive comments on torture. Most recently, he says "it works," so do you agree? Do you support torture?
Click to expand...

Not as a matter of policy. But I'm open to circumstances where it would be ethically permissible.
 
TurtleDude said:
that's pretty stupid Spud because criminals are probably going to torture you anyway. This was a poll about government action or the actions of people who are normally not criminals.

how would you answer my question about the terrorist? especially if your family lives in NYC?
Click to expand...

It's illegal to torture people. Torturing people makes you a criminal.
 
Absentglare said:
It's illegal to torture people. Torturing people makes you a criminal.
Click to expand...

thanks for something that has absolutely no relevance to this discussion
 
Try kidnapping a member of my family and not telling me where they are. THEN I'll let you know whether or not I support torture. I'll show you nice and slowly whether or not I support it.
 
TurtleDude said:
to say torture never works is silly. and torture can be such a wide ranging definition it makes a universal claim stupid.
Click to expand...

Wiggle words. Torture/enhanced interrogation including waterboarding, did not work in these higher profile and very important cases. The information that lead to the eventual capture of KSM came from traditional interrogation methods. Since using traditional methods gained the information to get bin-Laden, catch KSM, Padilla, and brought success in the other cases in those links, and using torture (including waterboarding) was counterproductive and wasted time in some them, it would seem traditional methods are more reliable than torture. Thus we don't need to do it. Or enhanced interrogation. That term is all over the report.
 
Gina said:
Wiggle words. Torture/enhanced interrogation including waterboarding, did not work in these higher profile and very important cases. The information that lead to the eventual capture of KSM came from traditional interrogation methods. Since using traditional methods gained the information to get bin-Laden, catch KSM, Padilla, and brought success in the other cases in those links, and using torture (including waterboarding) was counterproductive and wasted time in some them, it would seem traditional methods are more reliable than torture. Thus we don't need to do it. Or enhanced interrogation. That term is all over the report.
Click to expand...

it depends on the information being sought and what information the target has. Torture to get someone to confess to a crime they didn't commit is fairly worthless. Torture to get information a subject DOES have often works.
 
Casper said:
Right there, was that confusing?
Click to expand...

So only if a nuke was active in NYC and you had captured a terrorist? No other situation is permissible?

What about if the Nuke was in LA, or it was a biological weapon?

See how it can be confusing when you refuse to give a direct answer
 
Crovax said:
So only if a nuke was active in NYC and you had captured a terrorist? No other situation is permissible?

What about if the Nuke was in LA, or it was a biological weapon?

See how it can be confusing when you refuse to give a direct answer
Click to expand...
Actually to be truthful I am not 100% sure I would go that far with either LA or NY, but then again I am smart enough to not live in either.
Biological are unreliable hence why they are not used and the odds of any terrorist cell getting a real nuke are slim to none at this point, and dirty bombs are not much more effective than a car or truck bomb. So while the hypothetical is interesting to kick around, the simple answer remains the same, it should not be a policy of this Nation to torture prisoners, Period.
 
TurtleDude said:
it depends on the information being sought and what information the target has. Torture to get someone to confess to a crime they didn't commit is fairly worthless. Torture to get information a subject DOES have often works.
Click to expand...

You haven't provided a documented instance of the government successfully torturing information from a terrorist suspect. Which is what we are talking about.

The new Secretary of Defense doesn't believe torture is useful:
From The Times:

"'He said, "I've never found it to be useful,"' Mr. Trump said, describing the general's view of torturing terrorism suspects. He added that Mr. Mattis found more value in building trust and rewarding cooperation with terror suspects: '"Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I'll do better."'

"'I was very impressed by that answer.'

"Torture, he said, is 'not going to make the kind of a difference that a lot of people are thinking.'"
Click to expand...

Marine General Mattis got Trump to rethink torture position - Business Insider

That's a man who should know. Much better than you or I. Unfortunately, Trump reversed his position from the time of that interview.
 
TurtleDude said:
it depends on the information being sought and what information the target has. Torture to get someone to confess to a crime they didn't commit is fairly worthless. Torture to get information a subject DOES have often works.
Click to expand...

And you know they have it or not how? Oh yeah, by torturing them:doh
 
TurtleDude said:
let me ask it this way (this was on an ethics test for a course I took in college 37 years ago)

you're the chief of police for NYC. you have credible information that a terrorist cell is going to detonate a nuclear bomb somewhere in Manhattan. you raid the suspected headquarters of the terrorists. all but one of them get away with the bomb.

what do you do with the captured terrorist.

or the other version

you are sound asleep when your alarm goes off. you see several men dragging your child into a van. the last of the kidnappers fires a shot at you and you return fire, breaking his leg. His confederates speed away with your child. is it ethical for you to say treat him the same way Clint Eastwood did to the killer in "Dirty Harry"?
Click to expand...

The obvious answer in both cases is to not torture.

The deontological argument requires accordance with what you would have made into universal law. This means that the general principle must be obeyed without regard to consequence. Obviously torture is forbidden.

The utilitarian argument is the only possible way of justifying torture from an ethical standpoint. Still, even then, it fails to do so.

Torture is neither reliable nor effective at gathering information. The person being tortured simply wants to make the torture stop. There is a neurological explanation for this fact.

This makes it so the information gathered from torture lacks utility, and therefore cannot ethically justify torture.

Ticking time bomb or the beating do not provide ethical arguments for torture. They provide emotional arguments for torture.

Lastly, of the 595 people imprisoned at Guantanamo:

"In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful -- some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen -- were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2004/06/...e-value-of-guantanamo-detainees.html?referer=

Do you really think we should torture some, what, 571 potentially innocent people?
 
Absentglare said:
The obvious answer in both cases is to not torture.

The deontological argument requires accordance with what you would have made into universal law. This means that the general principle must be obeyed without regard to consequence. Obviously torture is forbidden.

The utilitarian argument is the only possible way of justifying torture from an ethical standpoint. Still, even then, it fails to do so.

Torture is neither reliable nor effective at gathering information. The person being tortured simply wants to make the torture stop. There is a neurological explanation for this fact.

This makes it so the information gathered from torture lacks utility, and therefore cannot ethically justify torture.

Ticking time bomb or the beating do not provide ethical arguments for torture. They provide emotional arguments for torture.

Lastly, of the 595 people imprisoned at Guantanamo:

"In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful -- some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen -- were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2004/06/...e-value-of-guantanamo-detainees.html?referer=

Do you really think we should torture some, what, 571 potentially innocent people?
Click to expand...

More google nonsense
 
TurtleDude said:
it depends on the information being sought and what information the target has. Torture to get someone to confess to a crime they didn't commit is fairly worthless. Torture to get information a subject DOES have often works.
Click to expand...

Based on what?
 
Absentglare said:
You didn't get it? All people who torture are criminals by definition. Everyone who tortures is a criminal.
Click to expand...

what stupidity. we are asking if the government should do it. that would assume as official policy. I get you want to contradict what I posted but at least stay in the bounds of reality of the thread
 
Absentglare said:
Based on what?
Click to expand...

say you have a safe in your house. it has valuables. a burglar breaks in and wants to steal the stuff. he tells you to open it up. you refuse. He puts a gun to your kid's head and say he will shoot if you don't open the safe up? what are you going to do?
 
It's pretty interesting that the guy who's never been tortured is in favor of torture. As opposed to the guy who spent years getting tortured opposes it.
 
The people trying to twist words to mean something else are just parroting their government who themselves are trying to mince words in order to evade international anti-torture conventions that we signed in good faith. It's a total disgrace. So, because we are now dealing with "non-state actors" instead of "prisoners of war", we get to ignore treaties that were designed to reduce the inhumanity of war. Right.

Torture is an unreliable means of extracting confessions and reliable information. Most people confess eventually, whether or not their information is real, in order to end their own suffering. Nonetheless, the USA has been torturing people for decades. There are torture centers all over the world on lands that do not fall under the Geneva Convention. We have deals with non-participating governments who give our CIA torture agents shelter to conduct their work.

People should not be under any illusion that the USA plays by the rule book. At least Trump is honest about it.
 
Northern Light said:
The people trying to twist words to mean something else are just parroting their government who themselves are trying to mince words in order to evade international anti-torture conventions that we signed in good faith. It's a total disgrace. So, because we are now dealing with "non-state actors" instead of "prisoners of war", we get to ignore treaties that were designed to reduce the inhumanity of war. Right.

Torture is an unreliable means of extracting confessions and reliable information. Most people confess eventually, whether or not their information is real, in order to end their own suffering. Nonetheless, the USA has been torturing people for decades. There are torture centers all over the world on lands that do not fall under the Geneva Convention. We have deals with non-participating governments who give our CIA torture agents shelter to conduct their work.

People should not be under any illusion that the USA plays by the rule book. At least Trump is honest about it.
Click to expand...

When dealing with the West Radical Islamic Terrorists should be very clear that they are dealing with people who are better than them, and who are determined to remain better than them.
 
Being X military gotta go with no. Don't want it done to our boys and we should not be doing it as well. We as the US need to take the high ground on this.
 
Black Dog said:
Being X military gotta go with no. Don't want it done to our boys and we should not be doing it as well. We as the US need to take the high ground on this.
Click to expand...

Trump is all pissed because he rightly knows that these assholes will do it to us regardless.

I still say we should not do it, two wrongs never made a right in my world.

TRUMP IS WRONG
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Trump is all pissed because he rightly knows that these assholes will do it to us regardless.

I still say we should not do it, two wrongs never made a right in my world.
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree. We need to be better than those we fight and not become what they are.
 
TurtleDude said:
that's pretty stupid Spud because criminals are probably going to torture you anyway. This was a poll about government action or the actions of people who are normally not criminals.
Click to expand...

Right, and in two of my examples it was government forces or the local authority doing the torturing. Can you address the first two? And is torture always moral when governments do it?

how would you answer my question about the terrorist? especially if your family lives in NYC?
Click to expand...

Simple. How do you verify the information you get? What do you do if your captured terrorist tell you the bomb is in SoHo and while you're there they detonate it on Liberty Island? That being said, torture is objectively wrong, regardless of the reason.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Oh jeez... :lol:

The topic is about US Government sponsored torture ... not what we know ISIS will do or some sleezy kidnapper who will prabably rape and kill the kid anyway.
Click to expand...

Stop and think, it won't hurt for long. If it's ok for a US occupational force to torture, why is it not ok for the occupied to torture the occupiers? Why is it ok to torture a criminal before their guilt is proven. And is it ok for private citizens to torture other private citizens?
 
TurtleDude said:
It depends on the information and if the target has it. a fellow I met in Kenya when hunting there 40 years ago played a large role in crushing the Mau Mau rebellion. He claimed it worked. I had no reason to doubt him
Click to expand...

Yeah, concentration camps are ****ing marvelous. Do you even think about what you're supporting here?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom