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Waterboarding Rocks!

BeAChooser said:
Did I say that? No. And you appear to be avoiding my assertion ... that you see no moral difference between the objectives of the US and those of the Japanese in WW2. So do you or not? Was one more on the side of good or not? Was one side more on the side of evil or not?
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What does that have to do with the tactics used? If something is torture, it's torture whether those who do it are as brutal and immoral as the IJA, or as (mostly) righteous as the USA.
 
BeAChooser said:
A moral obligation to defend a tyrannical regime? And at that point in the war, that regime wasn't trying to defend the lives of the civilians living under it. It was fully prepared to let them starve by the millions to preserve the rule of the emperor. It was fully prepared to arm women and children with sharpened stakes and send them toward the beaches to preserve the rule of the emperor. It was fully prepared to let them commit suicide by the tens of millions rather than give them their freedom from that emperor. But fortunately, the emperor overrode the will of the regime.
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So you're saying that the morality of efforts to save "hundreds of thousands of civilian lives" to thwart an upcoming WMD attack is contingent on the nature of the regime doing the defending?

The Japanese, if they could have stopped it, should have just let it happen?

Cause it seems to me that if they could have stopped the attack with torture, it would qualify for your hypothetical given that "hundreds of thousands of lives" were at stake. Seems to me your dodging a direct answer to this one.
 
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Praktik said:
I don't think I could personally torture anyone, under any circumstances. ... snip ... Now if I was in a position of authority would I order it to be done? No, because I wouldn't want to set a precedent that the next person in my role as a public servant could disregard the rules whenever they decided an objective was pressing enough.
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There you go. No moral clarity. A belief in moral equivalence.

Such is the insanity of the left, folks. The ones now in charge. :rolleyes:
 
Upchurch said:
A hundred of you two aren't worth one of them.
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Says someone who would let a hundred thousand innocent men, women, children and babies die, just because he is soooooo *principled* that he wouldn't inflict even non-lethal, temporary pain and discomfort on one probably quite evil person to save them. :rolleyes:
 
BeAChooser said:
Says someone who would let a hundred thousand innocent men, women, children and babies die, just because he is soooooo *principled* that he wouldn't inflict even non-lethal, temporary pain and discomfort on one probably quite evil person to save them. :rolleyes:
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Oh, all those poor, poor kittens...
 
BeAChooser said:
There you go. No moral clarity. A belief in moral equivalence.

Such is the insanity of the left, folks. The ones now in charge. :rolleyes:
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Seems pretty morally consistent to me. How is this "moral equivalence"? Please explain and understand that this is not frivolous - I really don't know what you mean by that and how it applies to my answer.

My worry as an implementer of torture is that I couldn't actually complete the task, even with many lives at stake. I'm not cut out to be a torturer.

The "slippery slope" worry is a valid one if I was in a position to order torture, after all, the detainee deaths and innocents tortured under the American policy prove that.

And we've been exceedingly focused on your very narrowly constructed hypothetical - and not discussing other consequences of a torture policy, such as the treatment of my own soldiers when they fall under the control of the enemy I'm fighting with torture and the perception of my country in the world "soft power" (oh sorry, I should translate that to conservat-ese, "pussy power"). People bring up these concerns and you brush them aside as prevarications. We bring them up because in the real world - these kinds of things matter.

In your fantasy land, they're not included by design so as to force us to make a choice you prefer.

EDIT: To me, the idea of being opposed to torture in principle (and even beyond the empirical evidence that it is ineffective at achieving stated aims and the other problems I've listed above) is the very definition of "moral clarity". To me, BAC's the one muddying the previously clear waters of morality...
 
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ANTPogo said:
Because, outside of the crazed fantasies of a Hollywood scriptwriter, your situation will never come to pass. It won't even come close to being almost a possible "maybe". Even in a multiverse of infinite alternate worlds, your situation will never happen.
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I'm glad you have a crystal ball and are so absolutely sure of yourself. Perhaps that is why you admit you would let a hundred thousand people die rather than inflict some temporary pain and discomfort on one bad guy. You must indeed know what God wants. Can you make sure to tell Obama? :D
 
BeAChooser said:
Such is the insanity of the left, folks. The ones now in charge. :rolleyes:
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You ever get the feeling when guys like BAC end on rejoinders like this, that they're not actually debating YOU, but the imaginary punching bag of a lefty they've constructed in their minds?

I don't see how such concluding sentences add anything of value - or speak to anything other but the partisanship of the speaker.

And I will add before the inevitable response, that yes, I see this on the left too..;)
 
BeAChooser said:
I'm glad you have a crystal ball and are so absolutely sure of yourself. Perhaps that is why you admit you would let a hundred thousand people die rather than inflict some temporary pain and discomfort on one bad guy. You must indeed know what God wants. Can you make sure to tell Obama? :D
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Sigh...
 
tsig said:
Also the fact that torture doesn't work seems to never get thru.
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But we don't know that, certainly not in the case of waterboarding. And we won't know one way or the other as long as Obama refuses to release the information the government has which would settle question. Would you care to join me and ask why Obama isn't doing that? I see no logical reason why he wouldn't ... but one. ;)
 
BeAChooser said:
And even if information was the goal, you still wouldn't waterboard to save 100,000 lives. :D
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Good of the many, eh?

So do you advocate taking all of the Rich's Money away and giving it to the poor? I mean, with his multi multi billions of dollars, just think of all the people we'd save from starvation.
 
joobz said:
Good of the many, eh?

So do you advocate taking all of the Rich's Money away and giving it to the poor? I mean, with his multi multi billions of dollars, just think of all the people we'd save from starvation.
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Now THAT's moral clarity AND consistency... what say you BAC? After all its, the number of lives we can save that count isn't it?

Whoda thunk we'd see a strongly self-identifying conservative advocating utilitarianism here.

Can someone quote me the posts on this board where BAC comes out strongly in favour of socialized medecine?
 
BeAChooser said:
There you go. No moral clarity. A belief in moral equivalence.

Such is the insanity of the left, folks. The ones now in charge. :rolleyes:
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Perfect moral clarity, actually. Torture is evil. The ones now in charge are not evil. Those who just left, but keep sending out their fetid little nosferatu with the lop-sided mouth to claim that they were right are evil.
 
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jj said:
It is telling that you use an obviously malicious and dishonest argument to the excluded middle in order to vilify the people who do not buy into your USA as new Christian Militant State attitude. Does Jesus want people to lie in his name?
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Pot Kettle Black. :rolleyes:

But since you want to get into this, jj, do you mind answering a question?

Do you see a moral difference between inflicting temporary pain and discomfort on one probably guilty person in order to save hundreds of thousands of lives, and allowing the murder of hundreds of thousands of lives to take place by not doing that?

I'll assume silence means your answer is "no". :D
 
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