Torture Poll

[beavis]

Depends on the value of the information they know. If they know the location of a nuclear bomb set to go off in an hour, torture!!!

But I dont trust any government to judge the value of information correctly, so I would vote no. If allowed to torture at all, governments would torture for little information.

[eeb]

I would vote against. People who are being tortured say what the torturers want to hear, no matter if it is true or not.

[Nick]

It is sad indeed that any of us would ever think that torture could be justified. []

[beavis]

Somebody has 2 innocent people connected to automatic torture devices hidden somewhere. They will be tortured until the are found. Nobody can find them. All this information is certain. The person who put them in the torture devices confessed that he put them there but refuses to tell where. Is it justified to torture the location out of him to prevent 2 people from being tortured? If you say no, you are justifying 2 tortures. If you say yes, you are justifying 1 torture. Either way, I have just proven that in some cases torture is justified.

[Yerzak06]

haha, sounds like something out of those mind twister books.

[Nick]

It does not matter whether one argues the semantics of what is 'justified'. Unlike the movies, whatever actions people take in life, there exists effects that will appear if not in this lifetime, then another. Those who torture and murder in the name of the state, for example, will have to balance that karma at some point. Though there may occur a 'Hobson's choice' as has been mentioned, the ultimate 'choice' rests with the individual who elects to torture. That is the person who will eventually, and unquestionably, reap the karmic effects of their actions.

[WalkerInTheWoods]

But where would you draw the line in a government that is justified in torturing and one that is cruel and deserves to be overthrown?

[Mustardseed]

Is it in some cases justified to kill then Nick? Torture is such a emotionally charged word. Lets talk about KILLING instead. Is there ever a situation where Killing is the right thing to do???.

You say people will "damage" their karma. Well that may or may not be true if there is any such thing as karma. I understand you believe there is but that does not mean it is an absolute truth does it. It only means it is your opinion. In either case I believe that it most likely will cause emotional or spiritual damage to be part of such things, but is there ever a justification.

I find the question in the thread very interesting, and since I do not believe God is a pacifist and there is just cause for using violence, I would have to say I believe that violence and killing and maybe even torture are in some cases ......justified. Scary thought!!

Regards Mustardseed

[Nick]

fallnangel77,

I thought that this topic might be better suited to our Spiritual Development forum as the issues run a bit deeper than Astral Chat typically does. If you disagree please pm me and we'll work something out.

Mustardseed,

Why not start your own topic on justifiable homicide? I thought the issue here was specifically torture during interrogation. To that topic I made my response. You, as always, are free to disagree.

[beavis]

If the torture needs to be done, like in that example I gave, I wouldnt feel bad about doing it.

[Nagual]

What shocked me in the picture was the smiling faces of the torturers...  They were not smiling to mentally torture their victims, since they had some black hoods on their heads.  They seemed to enjoy what they were doing.  So the "we just followed orders", even if it is certainly true, is such a lame excuse.

The problem is, as it is with giving amazing powers to the government, how much do you trust your governement?  History is filled with governmental abuses of its powers.  Whoever who becomes annoying can just be labeled "terrorist" and, under the patriot act, be secretly taken care of.

[WalkerInTheWoods]

As Nagual says, how well do you trust your or any government? I am sure that there are innocent people sitting in prison right now, but the government sees them as guilty of some crime. What about people the government thinks has information but in reality may not? Then in such cases it is likely the person will tell them what they want to hear even if they know nothing which would lead to bad information and intelligence operations.

Then you have the spiritual effects of torture. You claim you could torture another person, but do you really know what this entails? Could you really stand there, uneffected or worse enjoying bringing such pain and agony to a person? Could one truly be a loving, spiritual soul while advocating the torture others? Even forgetting about Karma, this would effect you in some way as to the person you are now.

Killing and torture are two different things. Killing is taking someone out of physical existence. Torture is bringing pain and agony to a person, usually over an extended period of time. I will not debate killing here in this thread.

[galacticsurfer]

This discussion made me think of middle ages torture and the grand inquisition. I went then to www.Gutenberg.org and read again Dostoyevsky's "The Grand Inquisitor" from Brothers Karamazov. The reasoning is purely materialistic and cynical in that the church in the pasasge and by extension whoever is in power has the right for the good of the masses to do what they want as people want to be told what to do and can't handle freedom.

The old man in the piece blames Jesus face to face for giving people freedom they could not handle and then leaving them to their own devices. We are getting enormous amounts of new freedoms nowadays through science(Nukes, bioweapons) so that we are very often glad to have someone, namely the authorities, take away such sticky decisions from us as who should die and who should live or be tortured.

The working of a representative democracy is a delicate balance, especially in war time emergencies as after Sept. 11(Or as in the torture instance in 24 due to a nuclear attack). Usually to beat an enemy you must become more and more like him to know how he thinks and feels, unfortunately. We can only hope that the current general situation that actually gave rise to such a poll will not destroy our humanity and freedoms anymore than Mccarthyism did due to the cold war.

[beavis]

I wouldnt trust my government to wash my underwear. I certainly wouldnt trust them to torture only the right people.

[Jon_88]

Hmm I wouldnt condone torture even if a nuke would go off in whatever city. Anyone twisted enough to set it out will not break under torture and could give wrong information to avoid torture for long enough to make it blow up.

As for the 2 person vs 1 person dilemma is realy not torturing the 1 a justification of the torture of the 2 others ? You are after all TRYING to prevent it ,thought wheter to use illigal (and perhaps unethical) means is still open. It wont do the poor 2 victims any good if you dont do the torture and stay on the moral high horse.

I think the question to ask is , do you think saving the 2 is worth suffering the exact same penalty as the one you consider torturing ,the other question worth desiding on is wheter one should cover up your own torture to get the one guilty of the 2 tortures convicted or else you can find yourself in jail and he you tortured walks (cudos to police brutality and the justice system[])

Free to enjoy life (depends on your brutality)  or make another hard situation(find another 2 to put into a machine) . Or do you then decide to shoot him after he forwards the location to avoid it ?

Now if i gonna chose right off the bat , i think of 2 situation containing this situation. First im a police officer , then i would let the 2 poor people take one for the team i dont think im condoning the torture of the 2 because i dont have the will to conduct such actions. I would maybe even report fellow officers doing it instead of me (im not sure).

If the 2 where my close family or friends however , the one putting them into the situation would be in a world of truble . it would be torture , and death upon forwarding the information (or perhaps mutilation to the point where he could never build such a contraption) , Then im not sure if i try to cover it up or not ,most likely not but im not a martyr either so i cannot rule out i wouldnt cover it up.

But also worth remembering is that in this hypotethical construct torture was the ONLY way of getting the location. This isnt true in real life ever, unless the thing your after is pure information existing only in the victims brain(like a new matematical formula or recepy of anykind ).Wich hardly can be said to be worth torturing over(but has been done i know).

[beavis]

I think the question to ask is , do you think saving the 2 is worth suffering the exact same penalty as the one you consider torturing

Its probably worth it, but because I'm a coward, I would not do that.

,the other question worth desiding on is wheter one should cover up your own torture to get the one guilty of the 2 tortures convicted or else you can find yourself in jail and he you tortured walks (cudos to police brutality and the justice system)

I wouldnt tell anybody if I did something illegal like that.

Or do you then decide to shoot him after he forwards the location to avoid it ?

Because he already confessed, he should be killed immediately after the 2 people are freed. But I might let him sit in his own torture device a few hours first... if I made the rules.

[Tayesin]

HI,
Torture has been used by every culture on the face of this planet and it is not likely it will change readily.

The recent blow-up over the treatment of Iraqy prisoners is reminicent of Vietnam.  Everyone jumps up and down about this type of treatment coming from soldiers who's governments are aligned with the Geneva conventions on war.  Yet, nothing is said and done about the kinds of torture that are used against these same forces by soldiers who do not support the Geneva convention.

American and Australian troops where subject to horrific tortures at the hands of the Viet Cong, yet no-one splashed it across the television and made a point of showing how vile it was.  Yet the moment some of these men did their own horrific things to Vietnamese soldiers, they were labelled as cruel and inhuman.  Where is the justice and balance there?

You will probably find that this latest uproar was arranged from within in order to help swing the tide of opinion against the US led forces in Iraq, and it has worked very well.  The fact that photographs were taken is proof enough to show that this was premeditated to get the results it has.

I am against torture of any kind being used for any reason as it is inhumane at any level.  Yet, a balanced perspective is also needed to see how one sided this whole current issue is.

Love Always. []

[beavis]

Tayesin, are you against using torture to stop more torture already happening (in my hypothetical example)?

[Nagual]

quote:Yet, nothing is said and done about the kinds of torture that are used against these same forces by soldiers who do not support the Geneva convention.

I saw quite a few documentaries on those...

The thing is: US and UK are supposed to be "the lands of freedom", the "best of democraty", examples for the rest of the world...  That's why it's making a lot of noise.  But many other "civilized" countries did (and are still doing) it too.  By example, France did really nasty things in Algeria in the fifties...

[sahlyn]

quote:Originally posted by beavis

Somebody has 2 innocent people connected to automatic torture devices hidden somewhere. They will be tortured until the are found. Nobody can find them. All this information is certain. The person who put them in the torture devices confessed that he put them there but refuses to tell where. Is it justified to torture the location out of him to prevent 2 people from being tortured? If you say no, you are justifying 2 tortures. If you say yes, you are justifying 1 torture. Either way, I have just proven that in some cases torture is justified.

Torture is certainly not the only way to get information from someone.
Beavis, for this hypothetical situation, why not just hire an experienced psychic to "mind hack" the guy? Or at least just hire a remote viewer to find the location of the people. As far as I know this would be nothing new for the government.

I'm %100 against torture. It's simply unnecessary

[beavis]

Its hard to find psychics, and nearly impossible to find psychics that could give you good directions to a place they've never been. While you're waiting to find the psychics and for them to get ready etc, innocent people are being tortured while you treat a confessed torturer like he's waiting for a trial.

Its my hypothetical example, and you're breaking the rules. It says
Nobody can find them.
Its a rare test of only your willingness to have somebody tortured to prevent 2 tortures. For the test to be valid, all other options must fail to find them.

[Nagual]

quote:Why not use truth serum?

Maybe it does not work very well against "trained" people?
Maybe it is too dangerous (as in too much is deadly)?

Anyway, I heard some US scientists are working on some equipment that will "translate" people's thoughts by detecting the subttle vocal chords movements people make when they think.  When/if it works out, it might be the end of torture as a mean to get information...

[beavis]

I'd never let a government torture anybody, if i had a choice. Government is like a school bully. If you let them kick your butt and steal your lunch money once, they'll think they can do it any time they want.

[WalkerInTheWoods]

There is a poll on CNN.com that asks "Is torture ever justified during interrogation?" I was completely shocked by the results. At the time I viewed the poll 47% voted yes!

http://www.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/10612.content.html