What are some justifications you've heard from RWers for torture?

[darkism]

I'm doing a sociology paper and could use some actual justifications you've heard from these lunatics on why torturing prisoners is acceptable.

Thanks :p

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. They caused 911

and nothing is too bad to happen to them. The "them" usually includes anyone who is from the Middle East or is Muslim.

[wtmusic]

2. They usually don't call it torture

"Valuable interrogation techniques to help stop the terrorists"

[merwin]

5. Everyone we put in Gitmo is a terrorist, and deserves to be tortured

because they hate our freedoms.

Also that it's the only way to get information out of a terrorist.

[Ilsa]

6. That's one I've heard alot also, and it is easily refuted

by the experience that at some point, the prisoner will say anything he/she thinks you want to hear to stop the torture. It really isn't effective, from what I've heard.

[Ilsa]

7. I hink Rush Limbog said they were no worse than fraternity pranks. eom

[Vincardog]

3. "WE' have to do everything we can to stop the next 9/11

[ironman202]

4. the ticking bomb...

you catch "A" and he knows "B" is about to blow up a school. You have to torture A in order to prevent B from killing the school.

[brainshrub]

8. "They deserved it" or "Why are you siding with terrorists" or:

"Why don't you care about the zygotes." or "Clinton did the same thing." or "Your just against the war." or "They would do even worse to us." or "This is a new kind of war, we have to give our troops permission to do whatever it takes." or "That's not really torture." or "it was just a few bad apples." or "The perps have already been punished."

Or whatever.

After the Schiavo mess, I gave up trying to talk to these people. They are beyond reason.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. The constitution only protects US citizens.

Heard frequently uttered by ass-hat Jay Severin (Extreme Boar). No explanation given for why the police continue to arrest people who kill visitors to this country.

(Citizens do have superior rights, where explicitly stated in the constitution, such as holding certain offices etc. however those cases are EXPLICIT exceptions and more generally the constitution refers to 'the people' meaning, oddly enough, the people.)

[theshadow]

10. You should check out Alan Dershowitz's justification of it...

... and his incredibly sick "torture warrant" theory. For a sample see: http://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/03/cnna.Dershowitz/

[seabeyond]

11. it is just frat boy play, per limbaugh

[HysteryDiagnosis]

12. Because they are just following orders... have you ever read

about or seen the movie about (William Shatner was in it believe it or not) the experiment done at a college to see how far a person would/could go in order to "accomplish the mission"?


http://encyclopedia.worldvillage.com/s/b/Milgram_experiment
The Milgram experiment was a famous scientific experiment of social psychology. The experiment was first described by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University in an article titled Behavioral Study of Obedience published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1963, and later summarized in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. It was intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant's personal conscience.

http://methods.fullerton.edu/chapter3.html

http://www.prisonexp.org/legnews.htm

Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment
Review by Hans Sherrer
Prison Legal News, July 9, 2003

The quiet Sunday morning of August 14, 1971 was broken by the wail of sirens as the Palo Alto, California police swept thorough town arresting nine people. The suspects were handcuffed, read their rights and subjected to the degradation of the booking process after being transported to the Stanford County Prison (SCP). So began the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), one of the most important psychology experiments in this country's history.

The brainchild of Stanford University Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo, the SPE was designed to study how psychologically "normal" people would react to role playing as prisoners and guards while being immersed in a simulated prison environment for two weeks. To do this a mock prison, the SCP, was set-up in the basement of Stanford's psychology building. For realism bars were put on windows, the cells were made of steel bars, there was a "yard" and "chow hall" area, and a windowless "hole." Surveillance cameras allowed Professor Zimbardo and his assistants to monitor the SCP 24 hours a day.

[Ready4Change]

13. "They aren't people, they're terrorists."

Gone from their minds is the concept of innocent till proven guilty, one of the things which I feel denotes a good and just society.

Frankly, RWers lack of critical thinking skills terrorizes me, which I think should enable me to torture them. Sadly, I believe in decent American ideals which 1) insist I PROVE RWers to be terrorists, and 2) STILL won't allow me to commit torture.

Just more proof that RWers truly don't "get" what America is all about. Blind, arrogant fools.

[Eugene]

14. Terrorists are hardened against conventional means of interrogation

and trained to exploit rules of civilized conduct.

And of course, there's the ticking bomb excuse.

The so-called rights of terrorists are offset
by the rights of their victims.
("What about the 3000 dead on 9/11?")

Even if a confession extracted by torture is unreliable,
the subject may give up other useful info about
his organization.

And finally, the "they're nothing but savages" excuse.
Torture is acceptable to them.

[johnfunk]

15. "Much more entertaining than the WWE...

... especially if it's Moozlim towelheads!"

oK, I haven't heard it -- but you know there are more'n a few redstatenecks who feel just thta way.

[leftofthedial]

16. it all pretty much boils down to might makes right

[Kraklen]

17. There was some asshole here earlier...

claiming that it wasn't that bad. Just a little embarassing.

[annabanana]

18. You just CAN'T TIE THE PRESIDENTS HANDS

in dealing with these people! He has to have the greatest possible latitude...9/11 "changed everything"
besides....
They Behead People
and besides
Saddam killed thousands and thousands of his own people....

(You never said they had to make much sense)

[annabanana]

19. "Those who can make you believe absurdities

Can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire

[kimchi]

24. Thanks for the quote, Annabanana

I'm putting it in my sigline!

[bloom]

20. ...

"War is hell and bad things happen under war, it is unrealistic to expect anything different."

And besides - "there was only one isolated incident at Abu Ghraib"

[sakabatou]

21. Haven't heard anything yet...

[kansasblue]

22. I heard this...

that the war on terror will just never end and we should just nuke the middle east and get it over with.

It made me sick.

[Fescue4u]

23. Just a shrug of the sholders

I forget the exact line so I'll paraphrase "Muslims expect that kind of treatment as its part of their culture, similiar to the beheadings they dish out etc", with a shrug of the shoulders.

[DistressedAmerican]

25. And I Quote...

From a passerby at an anti-torture rally on the 4th who shoved the bird in my face:

"I don't care who gets tortured as long as I am free."

I politly informed him that he was a fascist pig...

[bdot]

26. Since they had worse torture techniques, ours is OK and should be enjoyed.

[rman]

27. Geneva convention does not apply because they are illegal combatants

sorry no source