waffles anyone?

[Winstonm]

Any ideas?

 

We crush their bodies and use the collected fat dripping to light a beacon shining brightly from the city on a hill and then we force all the world's population to bow toward the light 3 times a day and invade any country where the person lives who refuses to comply, whether or not that person is a citizen of that country.

 

Yep, that ought to do it - we only have to get China and Japan to buy our bonds to pay for us being Top Gun, which I'm sure there want as much as we do.

[PassedOut]

Any ideas?

They could be raped repeatedly and then eaten alive on world-wide television. (I hope you are not serious either.)

[Winstonm]

You want waffling? You Can't Handle Waffling! Here's waffling for you:

 

At a Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Capitol on Thursday, President Obama called for “fighting the silence that is evil’s greatest co-conspirator.”

 

On the same day, Obama decided to oppose creation of a truth commission to vigorously investigate and expose U.S. torture crimes

[kenrexford]

Any ideas?

They could be raped repeatedly and then eaten alive on world-wide television. (I hope you are not serious either.)

Yep -- looks like everyone got my satire. I was a tad worried it would be taken as serious. Not too many people are in the Assyrian Party these days. LOL

 

Of course, there was, as there always is, a wee bit of truth intended by the satire.

 

In a theoretical world, you can have a range of possibilities anywhere from just nice of the GC to just nasty of the Assyrian method.

 

In the real world, sometimes practical realities place you somewhere in the middle. Hopefully, more toward GC than Assyrian.

 

However, ANY line except either theoretical extreme is a compromise of philosophy to practicality. Where we draw that line will, therefore, require some degree of "immorality" or "incomplete practicality."

 

Whereas I believe that a culture such as ours should agree on what degree of immorality is allowed and what is banned, in many very difficult areas of real life (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, supporting the Cincinnati Bengals), it is very dangerous to go back, especially in the face of past acquiescence, and criminalize decisions that were made during a time of crisis. It seems wildly more intelligent to agree on parameters when the crisis is not present.

 

I also think, FWIW, that it is also a bad time to agree on parameters immediately after a crisis-driven decision. The fact that it is a bad time to do this may not be enough to warrant waiting to make decisions for the future, because crisis, and diminished crisis, makes us think about it. The "bad" part of post-crisis re-evaluation is that the pendulum may well swing too far to the edge of theoretical morality and may forget practicality (as seems to be happening somewhat).

 

Then again, if you know you will cross the line by two feet, make the line two feet from where you really want the edge to be. If you want people to drive 60 MPH, set the speed limit at 55.

[hrothgar]

(And, in case you had to ask, the US is a signatory)

A signatory, but the Senate has not ratified it.

 

Edit: It seems I was mistaken. The link posted upthread, which claims to have last been updated in 1997, says that the US has not ratified the treaty. However, wikipedia claims it was ratified in 1994. :)

 

It seems this treaty obligates the US to establish laws against torture, and to enforce them. It is apparently in the latter that we have fallen short.

 

I think an objective investigation is warranted, and I think that if such an investigation were conducted and it found grounds for prosecution, then prosecution should be carried out. But the problem lies in identifying and appointing an objective investigator. Certainly that would not be Congress — "Congress" and "objective" are mutually exclusive terms, particularly in this case.

FWIW, the following web site as a decent summary of relevent US statutes

 

http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/2009/04...orture-law.html

 

As Ed notes, the law on this is pretty clear. The question boils down to whether we are willing to enforce the relevent laws.

[brianshark]

I was reading through this Assault Weapon law thread with interest and all of a sudden it turned into a torture discussion. How did that happen? :)

 

I am curious why this particular bill is so unpopular in the US. I can understand the support behind anyone having a right to bear arms, even if I disagree with it. But what demographic majority are desperate to hold onto their assault weapons?

[mikeh]

I was reading through this Assault Weapon law thread with interest and all of a sudden it turned into a torture discussion. How did that happen? :)

 

I am curious why this particular bill is so unpopular in the US. I can understand the support behind anyone having a right to bear arms, even if I disagree with it. But what demographic majority are desperate to hold onto their assault weapons?

At the risk of going further off-topic: last night I watched part of an episode of The Unit. In this episode, one character's 16 year old daughter had run off to hook up with a 21 year old guy she had 'met' on the internet, telling him that she was 18.

 

The 'hero' found where they were staying and forced his way into the room at gunpoint. He held the gun in the young man's face and forced him to acknowledge that if he ever so much as spoke to the girl again, he would be killed... the 'hero' was a special forces soldier, much bigger than the unarmed younger man... who had thought that what he was doing was legal since the girl had said she was 18.

 

I gather that this episode was scripted this way because the writers/producers see this reaction as absolutely NORMAL. And, no doubt, laudatory. There was no suggestion, in the show, that the hero had done anything wrong.

 

The casual use of guns in US television is astounding to someone not brought up in that culture... the message that all these shows hammer home is that violence, especially gun violence, is not only all right, but a positive and morally appropriate response to any issue, provided that you are using it against someone whose moral values are at all different from that of the audience. Moral right entitles one to kill and maim... hmmm... any correlation to the acts of the US at large?

 

I suspect that this attitude.. which is so pervasive that no-one seems to comment on it... is part of why it is political suicide to prevent the easy sale of assault weapons.

[hrothgar]

(And, in case you had to ask, the US is a signatory)

A signatory, but the Senate has not ratified it.

 

Edit: It seems I was mistaken. The link posted upthread, which claims to have last been updated in 1997, says that the US has not ratified the treaty. However, wikipedia claims it was ratified in 1994. :)

 

It seems this treaty obligates the US to establish laws against torture, and to enforce them. It is apparently in the latter that we have fallen short.

 

I think an objective investigation is warranted, and I think that if such an investigation were conducted and it found grounds for prosecution, then prosecution should be carried out. But the problem lies in identifying and appointing an objective investigator. Certainly that would not be Congress — "Congress" and "objective" are mutually exclusive terms, particularly in this case.

FWIW, the following web site as a decent summary of relevent US statutes

 

http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/2009/04...orture-law.html

 

As Ed notes, the law on this is pretty clear. The question boils down to whether we are willing to enforce the relevent laws.

Another followup:

 

http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/854-doj-p...-prisoners.html

 

The article in question discusses a number of precedents in which the US government prosecuted individuals for waterboarding.

 

Part of the reason why we might seem to have "fallen short" in procesuting individuals for waterboarding is that the opportunity to do so (thankfully) doesn't crop up all that often...