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Torture and torture tactics have been in the news extensively lately. Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) has been a contentious issue for years. We face the precipice of oblivion in many ways... Terrorists are waging a war against society. 9/11 and the recent Mumbai attacks only serve to heighten the need for protection and the information to achieve it.
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There is a one hour movie as well. Please keep the discussion clean.
Thank you.
So what exactly is your point?
The point is to question how we obtain information and how far should we go to obtain it. Second, would be to possibly define "torture" at an unversal level.Quote:
Originally Posted by nihil
May be.... my point of view is its possible.... We hope best....
There's a world of difference between torturing someone
and him torturing you.
I wonder how much reliance can be placed on information obtained under duress?Quote:
The point is to question how we obtain information and how far should we go to obtain it
In theory you would think so, but in practice I doubt it................. I guess it is a bit like "pornography", more a matter of opinion than fact?Quote:
Second, would be to possibly define "torture" at an universal level.
I'm pretty sure that as a general rule, confessions given under duress are inadmissible in court...
Quote:
White v. State, Supreme Court of Mississippi, in 1922:
OVERVIEW: A merchant postmaster was found dead on the store floor after being struck with an ax and chopped with a hatchet. The victim was robbed, and the post office cash was taken. Defendant was an African-American teenager employed as a farm hand, and angry planters locked him in the tore with the corpse to get a confession. The men also poured water from a dipper into defendant's nose to strangle him, causing pain and horror, for the purpose of forcing a confession. The same men visited defendant at the jail to obtain a confession. The court disagreed with the position taken by the state, finding that defendant denied confessing to the killing until after he was threatened, frightened, and mistreated. The court observed that the confessions were closely connected and made in the same threatening
atmosphere under duress, restraint, and fear, and were involuntary. The court concluded that the trial court erred in refusing to allow defendant's counsel to introduce testimony showing a connection between the confessions at the store and jail, showing that the same influence that made the confession at the store involuntary had not been removed, but induced the confession at the jail
You know I always question these moral debates... my thought is always who are you to say if torture is good or bad, how it should be defined and if it should be allowed.
I know that sounds really awful and everything is thinking "but it's torture... it needs to be outlawed and we need to do away with it". So let's look at it this way.
You and your child are walking through the mall, two people grab your child and run. You manage to catch one of the guys, but the other one gets away with your kid.
I'll tell you right now that if it's my kid (if I had a kid that is)... I'd be ripping out teeth, finger nails and hair to find out where my kid is. There's a movie, where a guy places a rat (or some other rodent) on a persons stomach, places a metal pail over that rodent and starts to heat the pail. I'd do that.
You can think what you want, but if it's someone I love's life hanging in the balance... I'm doing whatever it takes and if that involves causing pain to another human being.... so be it.
Then again.. I've never been in that situation... so who's to say.
Hmmmm,
The original post was:
To me at least that implies legalized, institutional or "state" torture.......... call it what you want, it is "official" (which does not mean to say that it is necessarily sanctioned).Quote:
Torture and torture tactics have been in the news extensively lately. Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) has been a contentious issue for years. We face the precipice of oblivion in many ways... Terrorists are waging a war against society. 9/11 and the recent Mumbai attacks only serve to heighten the need for protection and the information to achieve it.
HTR~, what you are describing is individual and "private", so would not be classed as "torture", it is actually "assault", just like shooting someone. I do hope you realise that if you did such a thing you would render any evidence so obtained as inadmissible, so the perp would walk away and you would go to prison.
I guess that brings us back to the initial question: if you can't do that sort of thing as an individual, to what extent can your appointed authorities do it on your behalf?
I am willing to bet that your legislation is pretty much similar to ours. When it comes to private individuals there is no such crime as torture. It is murder, manslaughter, assault and so on, but not torture.
If I murder someone it doesn't matter if I shoot, strangle, garotte, bludgeon, poison, or blow them up.................. it's murder.
That bit is easy, you are a voter, a citizen, a taxpayer, a member of society. Any one or more of those gives you the right.Quote:
my thought is always who are you to say if torture is good or bad, how it should be defined and if it should be allowed.
:)
While technically it would not be labeled legally as torture, it would be seen as torture in the eyes of society. Or at least I believe it would. As for it being inadmissible... that would be my goal... I would just want the child back, I could care less what happens in the courts afterwards.Quote:
Originally Posted by nihil
See I always think it's nothing more than a theoretical debate with no meaning until you've been there. The same with killing someone. Maybe it's just in the way the discussions I have with a couple of friends go, but my thought has always been that if you haven't been in the situation, you can't label it as good or bad, you can have a moral opinion, you can have a theory but you can't give an answer.Quote:
That bit is easy, you are a voter, a citizen, a taxpayer, a member of society. Any one or more of those gives you the right.
For that reason I tend to side a little more to the immoral side. I believe that there are certain times when certain crimes are justified. Torture, Murder and a few others. When it involves your family, and your loved ones... there are situations that justify those actions.
Who knows, maybe one day I'll end up in a situation like that and I'll find myself unable to do it. Hopefully I never will, but if I do I want to be one of those people who thought there were acceptable times for it. I'd rather have some shades of gray in my life than lose someone because I was unwilling to act.