GhostWriter16
Deity
The way I look at it, people are people, and both are absolutely unacceptable.
Not trying to be judgmental, I'm just genuinely curious how you reconcile ends justifes means with your faith.
Report: 'indisputable' evidence of US torture
- Thread starter FriendlyFire
- Start date
The way I look at it, people are people, and both are absolutely unacceptable.
Not trying to be judgmental, I'm just genuinely curious how you reconcile ends justifes means with your faith.
Berzerker
Deity
little Johnny wont admit his guilt, wait till Daddy gets home and grabs a belt
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
And kids are just more innocent versions of people. I mean really, who wouldnt save a 5 year old over an adult?
By realizing i'm still a sinner and not a perfect Christian.
Peter denied Christ 3 times. Do you think him a bad Christian too?
Perfection
The Great Head.
I don't see how that justifies anything. Merely stating that your not perfect does not validate your philosophy towards torture (or enhanced interrogation techniques or whatever).
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
No, it just identifies an area that I have trouble with: mercy.
If I knew a bad guy had information that would save my wife or kids I wouldnt hesistate to do what I needed to in order to get that information. I'd get it too, rest assured.
Deal with it later on, after wife and kids are safe first. That's the priority.
I've made great strides in some areas i've struggled in my life with, so I'm constantly improving my walk of faith. But i'm not perfect by any means. No Christian is.
Perfection
The Great Head.
It seems reasonable that you know you would do such a thing despite it being against your understanding of the right thing to do is. But I wonder how that correlates to your opinion of the actions of others and your views in the ethics of interrogating terrorist suspects
GhostWriter16
Deity
And kids are just more innocent versions of people. I mean really, who wouldnt save a 5 year old over an adult?
By realizing i'm still a sinner and not a perfect Christian.
Peter denied Christ 3 times. Do you think him a bad Christian too?
Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that you aren't a Christian or anything like that. And I really wouldn't blame someone if they did something like that in the heat of the moment. We all sin. I'd probably do the same thing, if its worth anything. That doesn't mean we institutionalize it and make that sin part of our legal system.
Yeah, again, I'd do the same thing I'm sure. But if we agree that its wrong, isn't it still something we shouldn't allow our soldiers to do?
Tarquelne
Follower of Tytalus
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2001
- Messages
- 3,718
I wonder if everyone recognizes the difference between an incident which is
1) Hypothetical
2) Singular. ("anecdotal.")
and the "real world": ie, not hypothetical, and containing lots and lots and lots of incidents. We should make policy based on the real world. If I'm plopped in the middle of a situation where the only way to save my family is torturing the bad guys, I'll do it. But I recognize that it's more likely I'm dreaming a Charles Bronson movie plot (Or was it Mel Gibson?) than participating in real events. And I still won't want torture to be policy. "Hard cases make bad law." Bloody heck, I'll kill someone in defense of my family, but I don't expect or need the laws on killing people to be any more permissive than they are now.
This also has something to do with the higher-standards we hold those in easily-abusable positions of power. Police, for example, have all sorts of hoops they have to jump through in pursuit of the bad guys. Police quite often, I'm sure, know exactly who's guilty as soon as they hear of the crime. But they have to jump through the procedural hoops because sometimes they're wrong, and sometimes they're just malicious. Relax the standards and they're likely to be wrong more often, and malicious more often: They'll be a lot more likely to get away with either.
Same thing holds for interrogations. What's excusable for a lone guy to do when desperate and put against the wall isn't necessarily a good idea when implemented as policy by the world's most powerful and - one would like to think - best nation. When it comes to torture I'd say it's a terrible idea. We have alternatives, and it's got way too many cons - "It's wrong." should be singled out for special attention - to be worth the rather dubious pluses.
I realize key parts of my argument include a couple of difficult concepts, so I'm going to go over them again:
1) Hypotheticals aren't more valuable than a large body of actual experience.*
2) We should avoid abuses of power.
3) Mobboss (for example) isn't a nation state.
*This is much of the reason we have sciences in addition to philosophy.
Note that we can make torture against policy and illegal and if someone really, really thinks they have to, they and/or Charles Bronson can still do it. It's been made illegal, not impossible. If, afterwards, they can demonstrate their over-riding need I imagine the court will be merciful. And if it isn't... well, if something was so important they were willing to torture I think they should have been willing to risk jail time. This is pretty much just putting torture with other heinous acts: If you do it the burden of proof is on you to justify - or at least excuse - it on a case by case basis.
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