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Peripeteia

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Mr. Jake Ellison - I have tried my best to act like a civilized human being, but I must discuss your incredible display of arrogance.

PLEASE READ THIS ALL THE WAY! EVERY WORD! IT IS WORTH YOU TIME!!

You condemn them and berate them for something you do not understand!

Your argument is, essentially as I have seen - "You don't understand what I am saying. You are an fool and will never understand my vastly superior intellect and views. Rather than try to cut back on the rudeness scale and actually EXPLAIN what I am saying in a fashion representitive of my age, I will simply ignore you thinking to myself 'LALALALALALALALALAL I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!'. If I never read what you have to say, your evil point of view can never hurt me!"

If this is indeed what takes place inside your skull, perhaps it explains why instead of answering my questions, you have ignored me.

What good is all your knowledge, all your wisdom, if you cannot demonstrate it?

If your ideas are superior, enlighten me! Show me! If you are correct in what you say, they will hold up against my false arguments! If I can be shown wrong, I will gladly abandon my ways and follow yours!!

But I cannot learn from you if you are not here with me. I cannot learn if you lock yourself away, living in willful ignorance of all those who hold a differing point of view from yourself.

Why do you live in seclusion? My words cannot break your bones. My ideas cannot tear your skin.

Are you scared of me? I assure you, I am human! I am made of flesh and bones and blood! Like you.

I can hardly learn from one who does not teach!

I know that my words will have little effect on you. Chances are, in keeping with your history, you will ignore me. But that does not make me disappear.

If ignorance is your choice, then your mind is already set.

There is nothing more I can say.

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Mod Hat: ON

This thread is heating up quite a bit. If you (collectively) cannot go back to simply addressing the topic without insulting each other, take a break and don't post in the thread.

Thanks.

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RationalBiker - You are correct. I apologize to all who did not wish to see my display of emotion here.

Jake Ellison - Perhaps you could respond to me, if you indeed choose to respond, via personal message? There is no sense in letting this matter interfere with the topic at hand.

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It is good to remember that what you approve of happening to others could just as easily happen to you.

America has been sliding into socialism/Marxism for some time now.

Is it so unfathomable that someday Objectivists, business people, capitalists will be considered the enemy and "a danger to the people"? was this not what Ayn Rand herself escaped?

Was it not the justification of the torture of Galt? That by withholding his knowledge he was "causing people's deaths" & "damaging the nation"?

I don't believe reason can lead to an ends justify the means argument on this- bad means, bad ends, something cannot be bad in practice but good in theory.

I believe in the death penalty but cannot accept torture as a reasonable tool of civilized people.

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  • 1 month later...

The problems I see with torture are first, that you have to KNOW the person-to-be-tortured has information. As far as I'm aware, only a very small percentage of folks sent to Gitmo or otherwise tortured were ever convicted of anything, which isn't particularly convincing evidence that they actually did know/do anything. Without hard proof that the person is in fact criminal/terrorist, any torture is an initiation of force against someone who is potentially innocent. What kind of restitution is available to someone who is wrongfully tortured?

Also, how do we reconcile the possibility of government misusing this power which we are delegating to it? Since our administrations change significantly every few years, it is dangerous to give legal and moral sanction to an institution that can be easily warped.

Then there's the question of whether torture is effective (either as a last resort or a general tool) compared to other methods (or even at all). I've heard both sides: many interrogators find it's ineffective, but other military personnel I know personally swear by it. And even if it is effective, does it encourage criminal/terrorist activity in the long run?

The burden of proof is on the person advocating the policy; I, for one, would like to see these concerns addressed more systematically and completely before supporting such a policy.

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The problems I see with torture are first, that you have to KNOW the person-to-be-tortured has information. As far as I'm aware, only a very small percentage of folks sent to Gitmo or otherwise tortured were ever convicted of anything, which isn't particularly convincing evidence that they actually did know/do anything.
First, what evidence do you have that people sent to Gitmo were tortured? Second, your logic is illogical: it would make sense only if the individuals were tried and exhonerated on factual grounds, which they were not. The fact that you lack such evidence doesn't say anything at all about whether these people have such information.
What kind of restitution is available to someone who is wrongfully tortured?
What kind of restitution is available to someone who is wrongfully arrested or imprisoned? Just because you don't know what legal remedies a victim of improper governmental force has available to him doesn't mean that governmental force is necessarily wrong.
Also, how do we reconcile the possibility of government misusing this power which we are delegating to it?
How do we reconcile the possibility that the government will misuse its powers of search, seizure and trial? You are implying that the possibility of such a thing automatically translates into abuse; give the evidence for your accusation.
And even if it is effective, does it encourage criminal/terrorist activity in the long run?
No. But thanks for asking.
The burden of proof is on the person advocating the policy
This is the one claim or insinuation of yours that I agree with, w.r.t. effectiveness: there must be a reason in fact to torture a person who has essential information.
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In a vacuum, it would be pretty undeniable that torture is not something a society should advocate for. The point of punishing any criminal is to protect individual rights, with the understanding that removing them from society is the best way to make sure that said criminal doesn't initiate force again. Punishment is not a valid method of gathering information, since the probability of getting false information is something the US government itself has recorded as being quite high - specifically in its studies of the Communist Chinese and the WWII Japanese methods. We know from various reports that these are the primary methods utilized by the United States government. A legitimate government, which advocates for individual rights, would have the mightiest military of the entire world, and would be able to learn anything it would need to learn in a time of war through its superior methods and technologies. The espionage tactics the US engages in now are spectacularly advanced and useful, and would only be more helpful and useful if we were more free in developing those techniques than we are today. The only other reasoning behind punishment would be schadenfreude, which would be a sick, disgusting practice that I imagine nobody here advocates.

Also consider what needs to be done in order to get into the position of "needing" to torture somebody. Our foreign policy of altruism has allowed us to arrive to the point where we feel the need to torture somebody to get information. But the information is aiding us in conflicts we should not be fighting - conflicts that would have never been perpetrated by a legitimate foreign policy. The issue of torture would not be a relevant conversation under a legitimate government. Retro-fitting our philosophy under a government that does not make itself conducive to it is foolish to begin with. Furthermore, there is not a single strand of legitimate proof that shows torture has thwarted terrorist attacks. The typical example provided by advocates of torture, the supposed 2002 LA attack, was nothing more than a cleverly-worded talking point, which even the advocates of torture no longer pull from their primitively-small chest of talking points.

First, what evidence do you have that people sent to Gitmo were tortured?

There are numerous accounts of torture at Gitmo. The Herald Tribune reported on it last year, and there have been many subsequent developments on this issue since then.

One level of interrogation at Gitmo included techniques ripped straight from the Chinese Communist techniques, as studied by the Air Force after the Korean War. These included sleep deprivation, semi-starvation, filthy surroundings, exploitation of wounds, etc. You can view an article about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/world/am...n.14154569.html The intended effects included: "Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator," "Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist," and "Reduces Prisoner to 'Animal Level' Concerns." The only change made to the chart that the government used at Gitmo was the title of the interrogation level.

It should also be noted that both Red Cross inspectors and released prisoners have mentioned sleep deprivation, beatings and lashings, and exposure to extreme cold temperatures. Arguably, indefinite detention without being notified of your crime could be considered torture. Let's not forget, either, the three British detainees who have claimed forced drugging, sexual exploitation, and religious persecution.

I'm not sure what your insinuation actually is, but to insinuate that torture did not happen in Gitmo would be absolutely foolish.

No. But thanks for asking.

Care to back that up?

Edited by Andrew Grathwohl
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One level of interrogation at Gitmo included techniques ripped straight from the Chinese Communist techniques, as studied by the Air Force after the Korean War. These included sleep deprivation, semi-starvation, filthy surroundings, exploitation of wounds, etc. You can view an article about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/world/am...n.14154569.html
I did view the article, and noticed that there was no claim that those methods were used in Gitmo. It states that the interrogators taught about "coercive management techniques", and that the instruction covered Chinese Communist tactics. Classes on military history will teach about Genghis Khan, which does not make the instructor Mongolian. I take it that you are shocked that the US military thinks we can learn from the ChiCom.
The intended effects included: "Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator," "Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist," and "Reduces Prisoner to 'Animal Level' Concerns."
This does not constitute torture.
Arguably, indefinite detention without being notified of your crime could be considered torture.
Arguably, that is not what torture is.
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I did view the article, and noticed that there was no claim that those methods were used in Gitmo. It states that the interrogators taught about "coercive management techniques", and that the instruction covered Chinese Communist tactics. Classes on military history will teach about Genghis Khan, which does not make the instructor Mongolian. I take it that you are shocked that the US military thinks we can learn from the ChiCom.

Of course I'm not surprised that the US military can learn from the Communist Chinese, but I am quite surprised that you appear to advocate the use of their very techniques. I am also fully aware that, for at least a little while longer, the US military will be the dominant military of the world.

To quote the article, though:

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base atGuantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military.

Emphases are mine.

Unless countless numbers of international periodicals are outright lying, and conspiring together, I would say this is evidence of torture at Guantanamo bay. And yes, this is torture (according to our own government!), because I refuse to accept your notion that outright brutish violence and severe mental trauma brought against another human being are not engagements of torture. (Not to mention the immorality of not trying somebody for the crimes they supposedly committed, and not informing them of what law they've broken, before engaging in any actions of physical or mental punishment.)

Edited by Andrew Grathwohl
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Sorry if my posting caused any confusion, Dave. I'm not trying to make blanket statements or drop rhetorical questions for the sake of arguing a policy move either way (nor am I playing the agnostic refusing to take a side). My intent was to pose questions that I do not consider to have been answered conclusively; until they are, I withhold a final judgment. If you do have conclusive evidence on any of the points (not suggesting that you don't!) I would like to see it for my own benefit.

Regarding governmental abuses of power, I am not suggesting that government will necessarily abuse that power - though it certainly doesn't have a perfect track record, and it's not a situation I would take lightly. What I'm getting at is not that the sitting administration will or might abuse those powers, but that future administrations will. The political landscape changes rather rapidly, and it would comfort me to know that even if my government might get lax in preserving rights, it doesn't have the powers to actively oppose them. You probably could have also picked a better example:

How do we reconcile the possibility that the government will misuse its powers of search, seizure and trial? You are implying that the possibility of such a thing automatically translates into abuse; give the evidence for your accusation.

In your example, government HAS abused that power, which is why there were court cases such as Mapp v. Ohio (the Exclusionary Rule came from that case).

As for Andrew Grathwohl, I think you're dropping quite a lot of context. Policy doesn't exist in a vacuum, and in a vacuum, no one really favors war or crime. Wars and wartime policies can't be dismissed by saying retroactively, "well, we shouldn't have been there anyway" - what's done is done, and that's the situation we're in. Nor is it especially logical to me that a free country would be the most heavily militarized (or if you prefer, the most advanced militarily) or have the best possible information (particularly considering many avenues of information gathering are closed to it).

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As for Andrew Grathwohl, I think you're dropping quite a lot of context. Policy doesn't exist in a vacuum, and in a vacuum, no one really favors war or crime. Wars and wartime policies can't be dismissed by saying retroactively, "well, we shouldn't have been there anyway" - what's done is done, and that's the situation we're in. Nor is it especially logical to me that a free country would be the most heavily militarized (or if you prefer, the most advanced militarily) or have the best possible information (particularly considering many avenues of information gathering are closed to it).

That's true; policy doesn't exist in a vacuum. However, when we discuss philosophical issues like this, it would behoove us to discuss them in a context that fits the topic. That was my point: if society was the way we wanted it, torture would never be an issue to be discussed. We would never be in a position of that nature because we'd abandon any altruistic foreign policy we had. So, in order to figure out the torture issue, we first need to figure out a wealth of other more important problems.

I maintain that the US is not much of a free nation. Absolutely, there are nations worse off than the US, but we still face censorship, economic controls, deception, and self-sacrificial warfare as part of our daily lives. Racism is still abound in basically all parts of the country, and a disgusting number of citizens are on some form of welfare. We are a philosophically-misguided nation - perhaps not as radically as most other nations, but misguided nonetheless. The situations we've put ourselves into as a nation make us bring up concerns that should be of no concern to a legitimately free nation. Torture is one of those unnecessary concerns.

A capitalist government would be the most productive of any other type of government, and would encourage the most technological innovation. Also, morale among the soldiers would be extremely high, due to the freedoms they possess that few other nations would come close to allowing. During times of war, espionage is a legitimate avenue of information gathering, and could provide any information necessary. Consider why we feel the need to torture to begin with - because somebody knows something that our technology and/or soldiers cannot determine. We would rather figure out information through conventional means before torturing somebody. Torturing is a (brutish) method of last resort, considering this context.

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So your statement was basically dishonest, implying that the US is not the freest nation in the world.

No. My statement was not that the US wasn't the freest nation in the world. My statement was that we are not that free of a nation, even if we are the 'freest' of all the others.

I maintain that the US is not much of a free nation. Absolutely, there are nations worse off than the US, but we still face censorship, economic controls, deception, and self-sacrificial warfare as part of our daily lives.

We are a philosophically-misguided nation - perhaps not as radically as most other nations, but misguided nonetheless.
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I'd like to throw an idea in the ring; a broader generalization that subsumes torture, "nuking Tehran", and related issues. This idea is the foundation, explicitly or implicitly, of most ARI writers who have discussed this topic. (I'm not appealing to authority here, just pointing out that the idea didn't originate with me).

A government should serve to protect the individual rights of its citizens, both domestically (through police and courts) and internationally (with the military). If an international threat exists, the government ought to do everything it can to quickly, permanently end the threat with as little impact on its citizens as possible. I submit a litmus test for any proposed military action or tactic: Does the tactic serve expeditiously/permanently to eliminate a threat to our citizen's rights? If the answer is "yes," then the tactic is morally obligatory.

Regarding torture, the question becomes: is torture an effective tactic for eliminating enemy threats? If not, then it is pointless. If yes, then we ought to do it. The same with nuking Tehran, or bombing civilians, or raping enemy vegetables, or anything else. I have no idea if torture is effective militarily, and probably most people are similarly uneducated about military tactics. That's why I think that tactical decisions should be left at the military's discretion.

If one concedes that torture is an effective military tactic, but argues that it should never be used regardless, then I question his logic.

--Dan Edge

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Dan, what about necessity? Should we use more force than is necessary to secure our safety in a non-sacrificial way?

What if, for example, the similar results could be reached with a higher CIA budget instead of torture. How do you weigh that cost against the spectre of putting that kind of tool in the hands of the government?

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Dan, what about necessity? Should we use more force than is necessary to secure our safety in a non-sacrificial way?

What if, for example, the similar results could be reached with a higher CIA budget instead of torture. How do you weigh that cost against the spectre of putting that kind of tool in the hands of the government?

Necessity is the fundamental consideration. The government is only supposed to use force against initiators of force, although it may be necessary to use force against people who are not proven initiators of force. Even when a person is a force-initiator, that is not a blank check licensing unlimited use of force -- again, force is used only as necessary.
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Policy doesn't exist in a vacuum, and in a vacuum, no one really favors war or crime. Wars and wartime policies can't be dismissed by saying retroactively, "well, we shouldn't have been there anyway" - what's done is done, and that's the situation we're in.

Torture isn't a debate of policy, but of morality.

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Torture isn't a debate of policy, but of morality.
The moral issue is quite simple: moral responsibility lies with the aggressors who launched the initial attack. Those initiators of force made necessary the use of coercive tactics against people who have not yet been legally proven to be themselves the initiators of force.

The second moral issue is whether it is proper for a government to allows its citizens to be slaughtered -- and the answer to that is also simple. No. It is the moral duty of the government to do what is necessary to protect the rights of its citizens.

What remains, now, are legal and policy issues pertaining to the proper level of coercion in self-defense.

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LC Wrote:

>>What if, for example, the similar results could be reached with a higher CIA budget instead of torture.

Good question. The answer would depend on the relative effectiveness of competing tactics, their financial costs, etc. There may be non-economic costs related to torture such as psychological damage to the torturers or the potential that such brutal tactics would incite -- rather than cow -- the enemy population. I don't know the answer to this, but I maintain that it ought to be a military decision.

--Dan Edge

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Both sides of this debate have merit, I think, and I for one have been struggling to establish my own conclusions.

"Torture isn't a debate of policy, but of morality." (A.G.) I agree.

"It is the moral duty of the government to do what is necessary to protect the rights of its citizens."(D.O.) Yes, certainly.

The question I'd like to ask is should my government, as my representative, have carte blanche to get up to all sorts of 'dirty tricks' in the name of my protection? At what stage does defense of my rights, by a state agency, become self-defeating of my own ethics?

Also, while I'd like to assert that torture should never, ever be used in my cause and my fellow citizens' cause, morally, or pragmatically - considering its unreliability, alternative means, etc. - I am fully aware that the core principle here is a lower value for a higher one. i.e, to NOT torture, in a case of extreme circumstances, would constitute major sacrifice.

Living in a Statist country like mine (which has had its own dark past of human rights abuse, including torture), I'm all too aware that the business of government is expansion. Give them a finger, and soon they want your arm.(!) Grant special powers of prisoner 'interrogation', and those powers become entrenched and extended. Then who's next for torture? A drug lord? A suspected burglar? Or is this a bit too dramatic in the case of the U.S.?

Anyway, I can only come to a compromising conclusion: Never say never, on torture; but it should only be used selectively, soberly, and as a last resort.

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The moral issue is quite simple: moral responsibility lies with the aggressors who launched the initial attack. Those initiators of force made necessary the use of coercive tactics against people who have not yet been legally proven to be themselves the initiators of force.

Does this give the government of the attacked country a carte blanche on the use of force? If they attack us, can we then torture them beyond what might be necessary for our protection, or utilize torture even if another method would do the job?

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Torture isn't a debate of policy, but of morality.

So why are you telling us that the reason why we should not torture is because it's bad policy, here:

Punishment is not a valid method of gathering information, since the probability of getting false information is something the US government itself has recorded as being quite high - specifically in its studies of the Communist Chinese and the WWII Japanese methods. We know from various reports that these are the primary methods utilized by the United States government....

..The espionage tactics the US engages in now are spectacularly advanced and useful, and would only be more helpful and useful if we were more free in developing those techniques than we are today. The only other reasoning behind punishment would be schadenfreude, which would be a sick, disgusting practice that I imagine nobody here advocates.

...

I find it amazingly dishonest that you would dismiss someone's point on why torture might be useful, as not a relevant issue, after spending half a page arguing how it's useless.

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