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Originally Posted by sprocket
I honestly don't get this absolutism that many on the left start parroting when it comes to torture... they sound just like the Christians they criticize.
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What's not to get? It sounds like you don't really understand what you're talking about. Did you know that many Christians on the left are absolutely opposed to torture? Or that absolutism isn't always bad?
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I can think of plenty of scenarios where torture would be the moral thing to do, perhaps even when the chance of receiving reliable information is miniscule... they might not all be likely, but definitely possible.
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So you just, like, sit around and fantasize about situations where torture was morally justified? That can't be good for your mental health.
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Perhaps torture is mostly ineffective and unreliable (anyone have some good solid studies that attest to this?) .. but it may be extremely effective and very reliable in certain situations, with certain people.... or the stakes might be so high that even the a slight chance of receiving truthful information would render it justified.
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This is ridiculous. This has nothing to do with the kind of torture that was the standard operating procedure of the previous administration. You're talking about some sort of fictional fantasy world. In Real Life people were tortured when there wasn't really anything at stake, when they didn't have any useful information- that's how torture happens In Real Life, when people decide that some sort of abstract notion of personal safety is more important than a commitment to human rights.
That's what this whole torture thing is really about- making people who are fundamentally insecure feel secure.
This Jack Bauer bullshit needs to die.
And I'm pretty sure that you won't find any studies concerning the effectiveness of torture because any scientist who attached his/her name to the study would be stripped of their credentials and compared to the nazis.