cleverlymadeup said:
Well actually the thing is that anything that is not politically correct is generally labeled as "hate speech" whether it is or not. What's more given that the majority of the world is racist and heavily bigoted, most places wouldn't care if you were the equivilent of a KKK ranter as long as you were against the right groups for the place your in. Really it's not worth debating with someone who seems to genuinely think that anyone "hides behind" free speech and such in the US like we're some kind of barbaric throwback to the dark ages in an otherwise utopian planet full of people with linked hands, dancing in the flowers together. Actually if anything the US is the exception in a sea of "hate", and really if you think anything coming from the likes of Fox News is even remotely hate speech then your world view is seriously warped. You'd probably have a heart attack if you ran into the real thing.
What's more this might come as a shock to some people, but Fox is generally speaking a left wing news organization. The big differance between Fox and other networks is that they provide a slightly more balanced view of both sides of an equasion than others, before USUALLY winding up at the same endpoint/conclusion as everyone else. However giving certain viewpoints any airtime doesn't play to the mentality of other networks and a level of slant they worked a long time to achieve.
Like most things on the Internet we are going to have to agree to disagree here, and on other issues (obviously). Neither of us are likely to have long term points of view based on experience and observation (or I hope so in your case) changed via an internet debate.
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As far as the rest of the subject goes, going back 700 years to like the inquisition you were dealing with something else entirely. I myself have pointed out in discussion that torture is useless for extracting a confession from someone. However in the case of most incidents of torture carried out in the name of religion (and this can be unclear given that church and state wwere not divided) the 'confession' wasn't intended for any kind of criminal purposes but for the good of an otherwise convicted person. See, if your up to that point you've already been tried and convicted for all intents and purposes. There is no doubt in the minds of the authorities already that your a criminal, satanist, pagan, demon worshipper, or whatever the heck it is. They've conferred with their witnesses, convened, and reached their desician. Back at that time period there was no right to counsel, or guarantee of even facing your accuser (which is why such things were included in more civilized justice systems like ours. Please note that the lack of such things does not however make all such judgements wrong. There is a lot that can be said both for and against differant systems of justice and some of the rights in our system are very much a double edged sword as anyone who has taken Criminal Justice can tell you). At any rate, when they extract a confession here it's meant for the good of the accused's soul. By admitting their crimes they can thus be absolved of them before being sent to heaven. Part of it comes down to a general belief that especially when the forces of actual evil are involved, that many criminals were actually posssesed (ie cultists or whatever) and only by torturing the body that was inhabited could the original personality take hold long enough to confess to a crime and be absolved.
As warped as it is, take a look at some "popular fiction" like the stuff that goes on in Warhammer 40k. A lot of the stuff the inquisition does there is loosely based on actual practice and belief, except in that universe it's all a true and verifyable fact (ie demons are possessing people and corrupting them). They have changed things around extremely, but the basis is from reality which is what can make it unusually creepy especially when you take it in the context of them being right about everything.... not a unique usage of the basic concept, but probably the most well known.
To say whether interrogations going back 700 years ago were effective or not is a matter of faith. Examples that old are too heavily out of context to be even remotely relevent.
It should also be noted that right now given the general consensus of society that torture is wrong (which is why it's current illegal even in wartime) you are going to see most easily availible information being screwed in support of the dominant viewpoint (which is why it is dominant). This is one of the things that makes argueing against an established viewpoint (especially in the information age) very difficult. It doesn't matter what the exact viewpoint is as the preponderance of information readily availible at a moment's notice for things like an internet discussion is going to support the side society is currently scewed towards. With the way the media can currently bias itself, it is easier than ever before for a group of people to effectively surpress easy access to any information that doesn't support the point of view it wants to dominate.
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In response to some of the other comments, I will simply say that you again have to read what I've actually written.
For example, with the Iraqi "farm kid" turned terrorist I mentioned, your not after some kind of deep Al Queda "master plan" the stakes aren't typically that high and when they are it's not usually that time sensitive. Your after the location of his cell that you know he's working with because they've been doing stuff around the area. You want the info from him before they can "rabbit".
There really isn't any way out of it without really adding stuff or removing it. That's the problem. Either you extract this information from him (or try) and stop them, or you do not and thus become responsible for any other deaths they cause if you don't at least try.
Torture is not 100% perfect, but the point is that it is pretty effective, and until we come up with comic book truth serum, or brain raping goverment psionic super-agents we can attach to every military team, it's pretty much what we've got. Not using it is simply handicapping ourselves, and makes us arguably as stupid as the French when they got themselves pincushioned to death over Chivalry at Agincourt.
Hey, you might not like it. But then again that's why war generally S@cks, and nobody really likes it. That's why long wars become hellishly unpopular no matter how justified. All adventure fiction aside, people can be really mean to each other but we generally aren't all that destructive towards our own species (sorry to the green peace movements and such). There ARE people who are wired a bit differantly but they are an exception, rather than the rule, and it's generally not considered to be a positive thing. Those who realize they are differant in that way typically either run into problems, spend a lot of time trying to conceal it, or both.
If you want to get down to it, a lot of my morality when it comes to fighting is very old school Heinlan. That is basically to say it's not "right" or "wrong" it's totally about "alive" or "dead" and whether your the winner or the loser afterwards. Nothing else matters since the winners get to write the history books, and if you lose in a modern war you get the honor of being remembered as comic book monsters and war criminals irregardless of what you were actually like.
Torture, asssination, mass murder to break the will of a population, all of that stuff is absolutly fine even if "wrong" in the eyes of conventional morality. Once it becomes a WAR there is no such thing as right or wrong anymore, just victory and defeat. Despite attempts to add morality into it through fiction (ie portrayals of like "Captain America" a virtuous soldiers holding to the strict ideals of our country and what peacetime civilians think engagement doctrine should be and still winning) when discussing conflict in the context of reality anyone who doesn't believe in doing something to win because it's "wrong" probably shouldn't be at the dicussion table to begin with. Right and Wrong all about retroactive spin control at that point.
Starship Troopers was a pretty bad version of Heinlan's book (not even cloe really) but the "Where are they now, they are DEAD" speech the teacher gives at the beginning pretty much summarizes Heinlan's views on the subject and what he (and others) sold me on long ago.
Don't like torture? Don't go to war. Maybe one day with a global culture it will never be an issue again because war will be behind us. Other than that it all comes down to opinion.
In the final equasion if more people wind up having not listened to me, and supported those I debate with, the USA dies and will eventually be overrun by a group with more of a killer instinct in such matters. I already see us having problems using our military on a number of levels by being too moral to fight properly (above and beyond torture which is just one issue). Heck, our entire engagement doctrine pretty much turns everything into an ongoing police action it seems. If the USA survives it will either be the result of dumb luck, or more likely because in the trials ahead we do what we need to, but retain our abillity to "turn it off" and go back to being moral and civilizard once conflict is past.
These posts are getting huge, and it seems as much as can be said on the subject by both sides has been said, so this will probably be my last post/response on the subject. Otherwise this will probably go on indefinatly.
