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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel
What constitutes torture shouldn't be up for debate.
UN Convention Against Torture
Of course waterboarding is torture. It causes severe pain (unless you've had it done to you, you can't say it isn't "severe"), both physical and mental, and is intentionally inflicted to obtain information or to intimidate/coerce. It is torture. If you don't believe it is, ask yourself if police officers should be allowed to waterboard suspects. If you're anywhere near normal and haven't lost your very last connection with reality, you'll conclude that the police should not waterboard, therefore there's no reason the military or any other government or civilian individual or organization should be allowed to do it legally.
Torture is illegal. Torture is immoral. Torture cannot provide reliable results. Again, people who are fine with torture are people who don't understand torture.
And really, the "shit happens" take doesn't make any sense. Are you also fine with genocide? Rape? Child slavery? All of those other horrific things that are a "part of the range of what happens when humans war with each other"? "I'm fine with torture" really isn't even callous. It's quite literally indefensible. |
that's where you are mistaken Will. You'd like the world to be this flowery, zen, no trouble, utopia, I see it as it is, realistic.
I'm not happy that genocide happens, but there's damn little I can do about it. I can't stop it or prevent it from happening in the world. I can not support it. I can decry it. I can tell people that I don't like it. I can tell my government and other governments that it shouldn't be done. But I cannot stop it anymore than I can stop people from dying.
Because I see it in that manner, I believe it to be part of the ying and yang of the world. No great joy without great sorrow.
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