Originally Posted by roachboy

what mob are you talking about pan?
are you seriously arguing that the geneva conventions that limit the use of torture is an example of mob rule?

and the reason for the koolaid crack, really, is that context matters---i'll put it in big letters if you like---this "debate" is happening in a particular context, one in which exactly the kind of "innocent" questioning of the category torture has resulted in lovely situations like gitmo and abu ghraib.

the bottom line so far as that is concerned is that i support an expansive defintion of torture.
i do not see much ambiguity in the present legal definitions.
i don't know where you see any.

you dont really explain yourself---you argue from a remove, as if it is some a to of intellectual heroism to pose these questions at all.

but what are these questions, really?

"if i stick pins under your fingernails and snap the heads, is that ok?"

or

"if i run electrical current through you that hurts, but which i dont think hurts that much, is that ok?"

i dont see the heroism in that.
i dont see the freedom of thought in it.
i see a strange and kind of disconcerting parlor game being played in which degrees of pain DELIBERATELY inflicted is treated as a kind of intellectual toy for you to play with.

and even if you try to hold these questions at a remove, to my mind this is where they are heading.