Girl, Mississippi, burned to death by 2

[bigred]

Wait....was she black? If so then I agree! If she was white, then oh whatever.

 

[marplots]

That people who regularly advocate torturing people have no place being outraged about people being tortured.
It's only a strawman if I'm making it up. Do you really believe that people don't advocate for torture on this site because I can get some quotes for you if you want.

OK. Just to clarify, she was tortured? Once I nail that down, I'll do my best to justify it.

 

[Primus]

OK. Just to clarify, she was tortured? Once I nail that down, I'll do my best to justify it.

How would you describe pouring lighter fluid down someone's throat and setting fire to it? Tortured to death covers it well.
Rather than scrabbling round with semantics why don't you just admit it wasn't a strawman rather than making yourself look silly.

 

[marplots]

How would you describe pouring lighter fluid down someone's throat and setting fire to it? Tortured to death covers it well.
Rather than scrabbling round with semantics why don't you just admit it wasn't a strawman rather than making yourself look silly.

Well, if it was torture, I suppose you'll have to admit it worked. From the article, it looks like she told the critical information to the EMS personnel before she died. (Although, for security reasons, the cops aren't telling us just what that information was.)

Is it that any pain caused by another is torture now? Ever have a tooth pulled? I can tell you from experience, it's quite painful. And, although I've never had a colonoscopy, I understand that's no treat either.

 

[Modified]

Well, if it was torture, I suppose you'll have to admit it worked. From the article, it looks like she told the critical information to the EMS personnel before she died. (Although, for security reasons, the cops aren't telling us just what that information was.)

Is it that any pain caused by another is torture now? Ever have a tooth pulled? I can tell you from experience, it's quite painful. And, although I've never had a colonoscopy, I understand that's no treat either.

You seem to think that the definition of torture only includes inflicting pain in order to extract information. It also includes doing so for enjoyment or satisfaction, as was apparently the case here, or as punishment.

 

[Primus]

Well, if it was torture, I suppose you'll have to admit it worked. From the article, it looks like she told the critical information to the EMS personnel before she died. (Although, for security reasons, the cops aren't telling us just what that information was.)

Is it that any pain caused by another is torture now? Ever have a tooth pulled? I can tell you from experience, it's quite painful. And, although I've never had a colonoscopy, I understand that's no treat either.

What's your point exactly?

If it wasn't clear I'll clarify what mine is. When you spend a large amount of time describing how it is a good thing to peel someones skin off until they die, you lose the right to act all outraged when someone else does something arguably less brutal.

I understand you're trying to back away from crying strawman when I can easily find plenty of quotes that posters in this thread advocate exactly the kind of torture I've said they do (just a tip 'strawman' isn't actually a skeptic cheat code, you do actually have to use it in the correct circumstances or you just look like you're parroting words you don't understand).

So again. What point are you trying to make?

 

[marplots]

You seem to think that the definition of torture only includes inflicting pain in order to extract information. It also includes doing so for enjoyment or satisfaction, as was apparently the case here, or as punishment.

Your right. I had in mind "enhanced interrogation" instead of the general use of the word to mean "painful experience."

 

[Primus]

Your right. I had in mind "enhanced interrogation" instead of the general use of the word to mean "painful experience."

If you think I was aiming at people advocating whatever the CIA get up to I wasn't. It was more at people who spend a lot of time describing whatever medieval torture techniques they wish were legal.

 

[marplots]

What's your point exactly?

If it wasn't clear I'll clarify what mine is. When you spend a large amount of time describing how it is a good thing to peel someones skin off until they die, you lose the right to act all outraged when someone else does something arguably less brutal.

I understand you're trying to back away from crying strawman when I can easily find plenty of quotes that posters in this thread advocate exactly the kind of torture I've said they do (just a tip 'strawman' isn't actually a skeptic cheat code, you do actually have to use it in the correct circumstances or you just look like you're parroting words you don't understand).

So again. What point are you trying to make?

The morality of an act is usually bound up with the intent or purpose of the act. So that if I push my kid down the stairs, I'm a bad parent. If I push my kid down the stairs to save him from a tornado, I'm a good parent.

We may disagree on what constitutes a valid, moral justification for whatever nasty thing we are discussing, but to then say that it's all or none seems like poor reasoning. Someone who supports causing pain for one purpose is not necessarily supporting causing pain in general. The purpose and intent are critical to the evaluation.

 

[Primus]

The morality of an act is usually bound up with the intent or purpose of the act. So that if I push my kid down the stairs, I'm a bad parent. If I push my kid down the stairs to save him from a tornado, I'm a good parent.

We may disagree on what constitutes a valid, moral justification for whatever nasty thing we are discussing, but to then say that it's all or none seems like poor reasoning. Someone who supports causing pain for one purpose is not necessarily supporting causing pain in general. The purpose and intent are critical to the evaluation.

That is where we disagree then. There are things that people constantly go on about here (mainly the aforementioned medieval stuff) that I believe has no place in a civilised society under any circumstances.

 

[Modified]

Your right. I had in mind "enhanced interrogation" instead of the general use of the word to mean "painful experience."

No, that is the informal sense of the word.

Intentional infliction of pain for the enjoyment or satisfaction of the torturer is part of the formal and common meaning, as is doing so for punishment or to extract information.

If you are a native English speaker, a basic understanding of those meanings should be automatic.

 

[marplots]

No, that is the informal sense of the word.

Intentional infliction of pain for the enjoyment or satisfaction of the torturer is part of the formal and common meaning, as is doing so for punishment or to extract information.

If you are a native English speaker, a basic understanding of those meanings should be automatic.

It is. I was using the wrong one. Sue me.

In fact, I think the poster I was responding to was doing the same linguistic shuffle to imply that torture for the purpose of extracting information was equivalent to causing pain for (assumed) sadistic pleasure. I don't think that's necessarily so.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Some compartmentalization going on here. Had she turned out to be a child rapist, several posters here wouldn't be angry, they'd be wishing they were the ones that dropped the match down her throat. (judging by the often repeated violent revenge fantasies that appear in a lot of crime threads).
So what is it, brutal torture is wrong, or it's right when someone 'deserves it'?
I happen to think the former is the more civilized option.

 

[Primus]

It is. I was using the wrong one. Sue me.

In fact, I think the poster I was responding to was doing the same linguistic shuffle to imply that torture for the purpose of extracting information was equivalent to causing pain for (assumed) sadistic pleasure. I don't think that's necessarily so.

I never once mentioned extracting information. I really don't know where you have got this from. Are you getting me mixed up with someone you've been debating with in another thread?

ETA: I've even explicitly clarified this in post #28 as I thought you might be getting confused with where I was coming from.

 

[Scopedog]

Some compartmentalization going on here. Had she turned out to be a child rapist, several posters here wouldn't be angry, they'd be wishing they were the ones that dropped the match down her throat. (judging by the often repeated violent revenge fantasies that appear in a lot of crime threads).
So what is it, brutal torture is wrong, or it's right when someone 'deserves it'?
I happen to think the former is the more civilized option.

Its like when a high-profile criminal gets convicted and people relish the thought of 'prison justice' where, somehow, all the other anonymous prisoners suddenly exist in a sinless vacuum ready to be an avenging angel. Never mind that those other prisoners are in there for a lesser or greater reason themselves and may deserve 'prison justice' just as much as much or more than the high-profile criminal.

 

[fuelair]

Good thing the people in charge are grownups and not impotent, emotionalistic internet tough guys.
I love living in a free, safe and functional society. I'm glad we don't try to emulate 3rd world crapholes, and I'm glad our justice system is aimed at reducing crime rather than placating the plebs' whiney bloodlust.

Been thinking this over (I'm nice that way): so you think the young lady and the older woman are both safe? I'm not real sure why and how you see that.*
Please enlighten me.



*absent thinking they are with baby jesus in heaven and that makes up for the pain they suffered. Ever actually been burned?

 

[sylvan8798]

Surely if setting fire to someone is ok under certain circumstances then the correct response isn't to be outraged but to try and find out if she had fulfilled those circumstances. Because then it would be ok right?

It's one thing to take the position at all such acts are wrong, whether by the government or by individuals, but your supporting argument doesn't really stand up. The government/justice system can certainly lock these people up in 8 X 10 cells with metal toilets for 20 years, but it would be wrong for an individual citizen to lock up someone in an 8 X 10 room in their basement for 20 years, regardless of the acts of that someone.

Unless, of course, you are opposed to prisons as well. In that case, carry on.

 

[Minoosh]

I don't advocate torturing people to show that torture is wrong. I in no way want to make excuses but whoever did this is sick and keeping them locked up with absolutely no chance of release ever is actually good enough for me. So is the nearly painless execution allowed per Supreme Court precedent.

Why? I think maybe this has to do with my suspicion that the torturer in this case was probably a previous victim of torture, and/or so mentally disturbed that taking solace in future cruelty isn't where my mind goes under such circumstances.

 

[marplots]

I never once mentioned extracting information. I really don't know where you have got this from. Are you getting me mixed up with someone you've been debating with in another thread?

ETA: I've even explicitly clarified this in post #28 as I thought you might be getting confused with where I was coming from.

Yes, probably. I've been responding on the thread about the CIA torture report.

 

[epepke]

Outside of terrorists(having such done to them would indeed bring a laugh from me) I often wonder why so many people think it is "fun" for those of us who want justice. It is not justice to put a "person" who does what was done to that girl. in jail for a while (even a long while (and so many have forgotten that the law is not at all the same as justice)) or even painlessly execute them. At a minimum they should have done to them what they did to the victim - with time to let them how bad it was to do it sink in. I admit I would like to see them walk along something while burning - because Justice would be done for their victim. I tend to suspect that many who do not choose actual justice are religious and believe justice will come when they die and wake up in hell. It won't, neither of those beloved places, so necessary for some, exists. It's all in this life and they stole/destroyed hers and it should happen to theirs. No balance otherwise.

This is the problem, right here. There is fun in this viewpoint. Everybody has it, really. I do, too. Such is the nature of having evolved.

It's behind fantasies of hell. And oh, isn't it delicious? To think of balance and to call it justice. It's fun.

People get pleasure from these thoughts.

The word "fun" has a meaning, and that's what it means.

But there are a couple of things.

Don't deny that it's fun. That is dishonest. Of course, you can be dishonest if that's fun for you, but I'll point it out. If you are embarrassed by these thoughts or uncomfortable at having it pointed out, then that isn't my problem.

Also, it's the same sort of fun that people have when they do this sort of thing in the first place. It may not be as bad, by some criteria. But it comes from exactly the same place in the brain and involves exactly the same kinds of mental responses and wiring. I'd prefer to live in a world where those impulses, which I don't think can be totally suppressed, were all dissipated harmlessly into watching Ahhhnold movies and playing pinball. It would be a better world. But this requires acknowledging that they exist, and that they are fun.

Cue William Shanter gesticulating wildly and saying, "Yes. We are a killer species. But we're not going to kill. Today. We're not going to. Kill. Today."