Torture Distinctions With Differences

It's not torture if you can watch it on Fear Factor. They use insects all the time including Family Fear Factor.

“hey, it's a wide world out there, what shocks me might not shock you, so who's to say”
Indeed. And it's an interesting calculus, At first glance, it seems a clear example of moral relativism (and just one more instance of the topsy-turvey world of modern conservatism). But perhaps a better way to think of this is as actually a species of moral absolutism – it absolutely cannot be immoral if we do it – where that “we” is defined exceptionally; the US, or Republicans, or the US military, or the IDF, etc.
And obviously, such a calculus isn't restricted to the moral sphere. For many, a thing cannot be empirically true, axiomatically, if Al Gore says it or if it is found in the NY Times.
So long as the criterion for establishing what is 'real' and what is 'good' remains identification with a political party/ideology or an exceptionalist nationalism, it's going to be damned tough to achieve an over-arching ethos re torture.

You mean “it's not torture if someone agrees of their own will to be placed in the box for money”. Nice try though.

To clear the air, I've long felt that our denial was the more offensive act than the torture itself. At least if it was openly stated “yeah, we torture people, wtf are you gonna do about it?” the hypocrisy of American Exceptionalism would've finally been allowed to die, and we could ask ourselves what us embracing such measures means for our society. Instead, we ended up redefining it, in a lame attempt at holding the moral superiority neither we nor any other nation deserves.

Shameful. If you have laws forbidding it, then justifications of “safety” do no good. If you don't agree with the law, then change the law. Don't break it and then claim irresponsibility on the part of the person who called you on it.

What in the world is going on here?

We have Congress passing laws that change and violate the Constitution because the Executive branch wants them. You know things like spying on Americans without a warrant, or as exposed recently without any reason.

We have the President and his people writing about how to torture, and saying its so confusing to understand the legal language when putting it into practice. After all not everyone would say wrapping a persons head in netting and slamming him against the wall is torture. Mengele and others would probably say it was fun. There were MEDICAL DOCTORS AND PSYCH DOCTORS that though waterboarding was OK.

We had a President that said we are in a “War against terror”, but the rules of war, i.e., the Geneva Conventions that we helped write and that we used to prosecute FOREIGNERS in the past when they waterboarded someone, are not torture because they, the conventions don't apply. Or did he and his folks say torture was OK because some torture is not torture today? Or did they say torture was not torture because it did not put the person in imminent fear of dying. I wonder if bamboo splinters burning under fingernails would put one in fear of dying, or just wanting to die?

Come folks the question is not what is torture, or did we torture, the question is a simple one.

ARE WE A NATION THAT TOLERATES THE ENABLING, AUTHORIZING AND ORDERING TORTURE BY OUR HIGH GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS? ARE WE NOW THAT WE HAVE BECOME THE BAD GUYS GOING TO PLEAD, “I WAS JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS?” That defense failed long ago.
Even the military says you should not follow an illegal order.

Do we tolerate high officials that enable, authorize and order torture? Do we tolerate high government officials that break the law? Are we going to tolerate our present government in its apparent path which is to say that “Those guys were bad. Those guys broke the law. We want to ignore them and move on.”

Does the law clock reset every 4 or 8 years when an administration changes? Is there some law that we don't know about that says even if you knowingly break the law after your administration is out of office you won't be prosecuted?

Is there an exclusive Old Boys Club that gives you a pass because you were a high government official?

Is there a double standard here? Is the criteria embarrassingly difficult so don't do it? Is the criteria if we do it the CIA will be mad at me?

Can we change? Yes we ………..might if we have leaders and not charismatic politicians.

President Lincoln where are you? We need you.

Webster defines torture as “to cause intense suffering, torment. to punish by inflicting severe pain” I am certain there are other definitions.

I am sure all non sadists wished our world was a much better one (I do) and that people all treated each other like brothers and sisters. The dilema is what do you do when you aren't really paranoid and people are out to get you, singularly and collectively?

My husband and I were young in the time of Viet Nam, during the draft. My husband was in the Navy and before he went to Viet Nam he was sent to SERE School in Coranado, California. Ever here of it ?SERE, survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. I haven't talked to anyone who has heard of it. Never hear abt it in the media. It was run by Vietnamese and headed by a soldier who was on the Pueblo, captured by the North Koreans and in a North Korean POW camp for a year.
My husband was:
waterboarded
naked
put in a box for 5 days-a box small enough that he couldn't lie down
was given little to no food for 10 days
put in another box that was so small he had to be in fetal position and then they stood on the top to force the top down more
he was repeatedly hit in the chest with a rifle butt til his entire chest was black and blue
he wasn't allowed to sleep
Then he was interrogated.
He considered this training not torture, so that if he was captured he could think “I have been through this. I know how to get through this.”
Daniel Pearl-(God rest his soul) was tortured-he had his head cut off.
John McCain was tortured. He was repeatedly beaten and his bones broken.

And now the information about the little we did to try to get information to save American lives has been given to our enemies. They don't have to tell us any intel, because they won't even worry about the threat of being tortured, much less being tortured

Yes, SERE training is performed by the US armed forces. All Air Force pilots undergo it.

That changes NOTHING.

Torture is not relativistic behavior.

You may not say, 'well, that guy attacked me, or she abused that prisoner by slicing his genitals', and somehow change the definition of torture.

It really matters not a whit what others have done. That does not alter the fact of our conduct.

IT IS WHAT WE ARE AND HAVE BEEN DOING TO OUR PRISONERS THAT WE ARE DISCUSSING!!!

IT IS ILLEGAL, IMMORAL, AND DESPICABLE!!!

Listening to the conservatives who support torture and are outraged at this giving the American citizens what we deserve, the truth, well listening to them defend TORTURE is like they defend it as such:

To keep this country safe all we had to do was to grab a Muslim and torture them.

That's it, it's like they were suing Muslims and torture much like superstitious people use

VOO DOO Dolls-

You know, don't like a person and want to stop them–

grab a voo doo doll and stick pins in them

Conservatives on keeping American safe under Bush:

grab a Muslim and torture them–kept the US safe.

We're a much better nation than that!!! We didn't have to go down to the level of a rogue nation like we did under Bush–SHAMEFUL!!!!

Yes, SERE training is performed by the US armed forces. All Air Force pilots undergo it.

That changes NOTHING.

Torture is not relativistic behavior.

You may not say, 'well, that guy attacked me, or she abused that prisoner by slicing his genitals', and somehow change the definition of torture.

It really matters not a whit what others have done. That does not alter the fact of our conduct.

IT IS WHAT WE ARE AND HAVE BEEN DOING TO OUR PRISONERS THAT WE ARE DISCUSSING!!!

IT IS ILLEGAL, IMMORAL, AND DESPICABLE!!!

Listening to the conservatives who support torture and are outraged at this giving the American citizens what we deserve, the truth, well listening to them defend TORTURE is like they defend it as such:

To keep this country safe all we had to do was to grab a Muslim and torture them.

That's it, it's like they were suing Muslims and torture much like superstitious people use

VOO DOO Dolls-

You know, don't like a person and want to stop them–

grab a voo doo doll and stick pins in them

Conservatives on keeping American safe under Bush:

grab a Muslim and torture them–kept the US safe.

We're a much better nation than that!!! We didn't have to go down to the level of a rogue nation like we did under Bush–SHAMEFUL!!!!