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How far are you willing to go for security?

IceBlaZe

Atheist Proselytizer
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I didn't include a poll because there are too many options.
The question applies to local and international... Meaning when should a country like Iraq should be attacked if ever, are you willing to torture terrorists to get info of location of other terrorists or explosives the terrorists intended to use... Are you willing to kill terrorists before they do their action, are you willing to arrest terrorists with no cause, only with suspission (spelling).

Do you think that a country has the right to defend itself at any cost, including army campaigns that hurt citizens (but do not target them).
what do you think is a cause enough for war.. etc etc.

Be creative, and please, dont bring current events into this. I dont want to start another Iraq-America or Israel-Palestine thread.
 
Interesting question.

I think it depends on your principles as well as on pragmatic thinking. Or perhaps the proportion of both.
It's about what you want to defend as well.

are you willing to torture terrorists to get info of location of other terrorists or explosives the terrorists intended to use...
No. I belive in human rights as the basic principles of society. Therefore torture must never be an option. But of course that's easy to say, what if otherwise some of the "good" people get killed cause you didn't get the necessary information to prevent it? Well, here the "dying for you beliefs" issue comes into play, and as I stated there I can't be 100% sure how I would act.
But from a broader than personal point of view, for example considering the agenda of a government or state I definetely say no to torture under any circumstances.

Are you willing to kill terrorists before they do their action, are you willing to arrest terrorists with no cause, only with suspission (spelling).
Also no. "Innocent till proven guilty" is one of the highest principles of a free society (in my opinion). Of course in an ideal world the government would only use this option for people who really are terrorists and plan to carry out attacks. But in an ideal world there won't be any terrorists at all.
So if you restrict the fair rule of law through measures like arrests without definite suspicion you open the door for random arrests of people who have nothing to do with terrorism. Maybe people who have a different opinion or people who belong to a certain ethnic group.

Do you think that a country has the right to defend itself at any cost, including army campaigns that hurt citizens (but do not target them).
I guess you mean civilians and the answer is again no. At least not at ANY cost. And you have to ask yourself what is defense?
Is a preemptive strike defense? Or an offensive war?
It is okay to defend yourself, only hardcore pacifists would deny that. But defense in my opinion is a reaction not an action.
One reason is again that it can be abused too easily. Theoretically you can always find (or construct) as reason to "defend" your country against anything. Even if it is "defending" the country against not expanding ;)

So back to the beginning. I think there are things worth defending, in particular freedoms. But defending them by restricting them or defending against an "evil" enemy by becoming "evil" yourself should not be an option.
 
Originally posted by IceBlaZe
Be creative, and please, dont bring current events into this. I dont want to start another Iraq-America or Israel-Palestine thread.
Well that's going to be hard, I think this thread was inspired by the current situation in the first place.....

From my point of view (in the quiet and peaceful western part of Europe) I like my government to monitor evident suspicious activity but in the same time respect my privacy and human rights. If I was ever forced to choose between my privacy and human rights or a completely safe society I would choose privacy and human rights. My opinion would change rather quickly when a terrorist attack at my country would occur though.

I am completely against torturing people to get information out of them. When you criticize terrorists or terrorist supporting regimes because of their inhumanity you shouldn't behave inhumane yourself because you would bring yourself down to their level and then you really have no right to criticize them anymore as you are just as bad as they are.

A war on terrorism won't solve anything as the terrorists of tomorrow are the innocent civilians of today and you will never be able to pick the terrorists from the innocent civilians. Blaming a whole country for the acts of just a few will enrage the civilians of that country which will provide you with a whole society turned into terrorists to fight.
 
You should be able to torture terrotists into talking, as a last option. A country should be able to protect itself any means possible (except bio warfare and using :nuke: )!!
 
Its difficult to generalize in this manner because each situation in which terrorists threaten a nation they will have different options to respond to the specific threat.
There is more than one way to skin a cat, and there are many different kinds of terrorists out there that need skinning.

As far as how preemptive the evidence taken can be, in my opinion terrorists fit into this nifty little catagory where they are extranationalists in their actions, and should not be treated as specific citizens of their national country. However, if they belong to a country that views terrorism as a legitimate danger and has a justice system capable of dealing with them, then I believe they captured terrorist should be held on trail in that nation to remain a hold on soverignity and reduce the amount of international cooperation and responsibility required.

In the current world enviroment, it is impossible to stamp out terrorism without harming civilians. If anyone in America had a reasonable plan to do so, we would take it. I don't believe that is adopting an 'any means necessary' tactic would be even remotely effective in combating terrorism.
 
Act with Honor. Think of what that means and that says about all of it.

Torture, never.
Accidental innocent human death, minimize at all costs.
Accidental property damage, mininize it b/c it more than likely is someone's only way of supporting themself and their family.
Civil liberties for citizens, do not ever enfringe. Detain only with proof.
Civil liberties for vistors on our soil, treat them with respect, get info from them, but release them within a reasonable amount of time. Detain on slight suspiction.
Civil liberties for other on soil that is not ours, treat them as we would vistors to our country. Detain on slight suspiction.
Respect other countries' sovereignty but defend our citizens from harm that is supported by their gov't.
 
Minimize death, but apart from that, yes to all - yes to torture in appropriate circumstances, yes to preemptive killing, yes to unrestrained nuclear warfare, yes to the ability to defend the country.
I believe that carries my point across sufficiently.:D
 
Innocent until proven guilty doesnt really work even in todays world. A lot of innocent people get arrested, and then proven innocent after investigation, and sometimes never.
When you think to yourself, is the safety of dozens or sometimes hundreds and thousands, and when it comes to nuclear threat, even millions of citizens is more important than the rights of one innocent citizen? or a few? or a few dozens? I think it is.
I belive that dying for your beliefs is not only dying, it generally speaks for sacrificing yourself for your beliefs. I believe in freedom, but I also believe that security for the major is more important than freedom for the minor in certain cases.

Lets take a hypothetical case: Your country has intelligence info that a few terrorists are going to attack the twin towers and can cause a lot of deaths. You arrest one of the terrorists, knowing, that there is a big chance that he is a part of the terrorist squad.
Using torture on him to get info out of him, can save the life of thousands of people. Are you sure you wont use it?
Here comes the basic question, you are actually defending the basic rights of democracy on someone who defies democracy and who is willing to kill thousands of innocent citizens, and by doing that you are also probably sacrificing the life of thousands innocent citizens. I dont think human rights should exist at any costs. Just think basic logic... Well, thats my basic logic at least.
I preffer to sleep better at nights while knowing a few terrorists got tortured, other than knowing that terrorists are out there because there is no 'Hard evidence' that they are going to do something, or because someone was willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of people just for the basic rights of one person.

I like my government to monitor evident suspicious activity but in the same time respect my privacy and human rights

hehe, easier to say than to do ;)
 
Originally posted by IceBlaze
When you think to yourself, is the safety of dozens or sometimes hundreds and thousands, and when it comes to nuclear threat, even millions of citizens is more important than the rights of one innocent citizen? or a few? or a few dozens? I think it is.
I think it is not. At least not in a free Democracy, that's the main difference to a totalitarian dictatorship. For me defending liberty and freedom doesn't mean cutting liberty and freedom.

Originally posted by civ-1 addict
When you criticize terrorists or terrorist supporting regimes because of their inhumanity you shouldn't behave inhumane yourself because you would bring yourself down to their level and then you really have no right to criticize them anymore as you are just as bad as they are.
That's it. Then you could as well obey to their demands...
What's the point in fighting terror and totalitarianism with terror and totalitarianism?

Originally posted by IceBlaze
Using torture on him to get info out of him, can save the life of thousands of people. Are you sure you wont use it?
As I said I am not sure on a personal level, cause nobody is perfect and can say how he would react. For example if people I like or even love are in danger.
But on government level, I would hold my morals as the highest value. Therefore torture must never be an option.

Originally posted by IceBlaze
Here comes the basic question, you are actually defending the basic rights of democracy on someone who defies democracy and who is willing to kill thousands of innocent citizens, and by doing that you are also probably sacrificing the life of thousands innocent citizens.
The key word here is "probably". If you had enough evidence you could arrest him and bring him to justice. But if not, on pure suspicion, it shouldn't be done, even if that MAY danger some individuals. As stated in my first post, that opens the door for things far worse. It is not an easy decision though but I think it's the right one.

Originally posted by IceBlaze
I dont think human rights should exist at any costs. Just think basic logic... Well, thats my basic logic at least.
I don't say it's illogic. But I DO think human rights should exist at any cost. That's a question of opinion, not of right and wrong.

Originally posted by IceBlaze
I preffer to sleep better at nights while knowing a few terrorists got tortured, other than knowing that terrorists are out there because there is no 'Hard evidence' that they are going to do something, or because someone was willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of people just for the basic rights of one person.
That's the maybe thing again. You wouldn't definetely sacrifice 1000 innocent lives (as you can't know what the future brings) but you would definitely sacrifice a person "inalienable" rights.

I can understand your point and I see that security is important. But what I don't like is when people (not you) say they would be "defending freedom" by doing that. That is simply not true.
On the contrary it is security vs. freedom and there I am on the freedom side ;)
 
A society that will trade a little order for a little freedom will lose both, and deserve neither.
--Thomas Jefferson

I believe that sums up my thoughts on this rather well.
 
Democracy is not about sacrificing humans for the rights, democracy is about having the choices to sacrifice rights for a major of humans.

a lot of things in democracy contradict each other... For instance, have you seen terminal F in munich airport ?
Its the terminal used for Israelies, and its very distant from all others ... if you want to fly and buy in munich airport and you are flying to Israel, you have to take a long walk in a wooden-made terminal in the snow, and its not nice, believe me, I've done it.

Now, you can say its discrimination or you can say its observation.
It all comes to the cause, were you discrimnating Israelies because they are Israelies or for the discrimination of it, or were you seperating Israelies from the others for the security of the rest of the airport?
2nd choice is correct. So its not discrimination, it does contradict a few democratic basics (Right for equality, one of the most basic ones) for the right for security.

Same thing happens in Ben-Gurion airport in Israel. all arabs have a more indepth security check, now is that because Israelies hate arabs and want to discriminate them or is it because we want to take care for the security of the others, including arabs themselves. We do not fly arabs in different planes, we just put them in a seperate column with a more indepth security procedure. you can be blind (IMO) and call it discrimination, or you can be more judice and see it is actually observation.

So, does torturing terrorists break a few democratic basics? Yes.
Is it contradictual to democracy? Like a lot of things in everyday life.
Is it done so the government can do their best to keep citizens their right for security? Yes.

You seem to choose freedom over security... I think your choice is more suitable to an idealist world... And we are in a terrible world :D

These are all just my opinions, of course.

So, do you preffer the Israelies will be in the same terimnals as everyone, or would you, not as an Israeli, preffer to keep the Israelies in a distant terminal for the security of the major?
 
Originally posted by IceBlaze
Democracy is not about sacrificing humans for the rights, democracy is about having the choices to sacrifice rights for a major of humans.
Not necessarily wrong. That's why I said "free Democracy". A society that grants equal rights and freedoms to EVERYBODY, disregarding gender, race, religion, etc. .
And in that society there should be no choice to sacrifice rights for whatever reason.

a lot of things in democracy contradict each other... For instance, have you seen terminal F in munich airport ?
Its the terminal used for Israelies, and its very distant from all others ... if you want to fly and buy in munich airport and you are flying to Israel, you have to take a long walk in a wooden-made terminal in the snow, and its not nice, believe me, I've done it.
No, I've never been to Munich airport. Are you sure that the people who get that "special" treatment are Israelis or ALL people who fly to Israel.
Does an Israeli have to go there when flying to Paris?
In that case it would be no discrimination as everything connected to Israel and Jews in general gets special guard because of the terrorist threat. If it is for citizens of a specific nation (here = Israel) it would indeed by discrimination of a kind.
But as far as I've heard no Israeli or Jewish person gets forced to have more guard and security, most are actually in favour of it.

But anyway, of course security often gets valued over freedom. That is exactly what I'm critizising. For example here in German universities students from Arab countries we checked and sometimes even interviewed by the internal intelligence agency.
They were picked just because of their nationality/ethnic background. To me that IS discrimination and maybe even racism.

Originally posted by IceBlaze
So, do you preffer the Israelies will be in the same terimnals as everyone, or would you, not as an Israeli, preffer to keep the Israelies in a distant terminal for the security of the major?
If it is as you claim they should use the same terminals, except for one situation. That is if both the Airport as well as the Israelies (represented through their government or perhaps everyone for himself) agree to that treatment. But it must not be forced on them.

You seem to choose freedom over security...
I do! As I cleary said. And yes that is somehow idealistic and I see your point cause I'm far too cynical to stick to ideals, but on the other hand I see no point in holding a different opinion either ;)
 
Maybe its people flying to Israel, but for my point, it doesnt matter.
you can consider it as discrimination of people who are flying to israel in that case... but it isnt. its observation.
 
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