I ask you have been a victim of a violent crime, yourself?
I have been a victim of a crime and I would never want the person concerned to be tortured. I want people who attack other people to be arrested, charged and convicted. Not tortured.
I applaud people who can say that they are happy to see their perpetrator walking out of jail a free man.
That's a straw man. Nobody exists who would be happy to see their abuser walk out of jail.
A victim of a serious crime should be able to see their abuser locked up in jail for
good or for a long, long time. What does TORTURE have to do with it? Do we want justice, with the weight of due process behind us, or do we just want revenge?
It's so easy to say that when you haven't experienced it yourself. Man, the trauma and anguish they've inflicted last years. I understand how the soldiers feel seeing these people just locked up and have no remorse for their fellow human being.
Again, I ask, what principles do we believe in? Justice or revenge? I despise people who plot terrible crimes like 9/11 with all my heart but that still doesn't mean I would want them tortured. (How would that make me better than them?) Receiving a life sentence for their appalling crime, good Lord,
YES.
Torture is justified if it is a form of punishment, IMHO.
It
amazes me that people can type such sentiments so calmly.
This is also contradictory.
I thought the Bush admin justified waterboarding on the grounds it would yield useful information (which to me is a crock from the start, since information gained under torture is hardly reliable). But you say it's OK as a form of punishment
as well. Forgive me if I say I would run a mile from any regime that thought it was just dandy to torture people as a form of punishment. But that isn't what the Bush administration was about, was it? (Not that I find their actions acceptable).
What kind of torture would you find acceptable, then? Applying electric shocks to someone's genitals? That's a pretty standard practice for those regimes which do such things. If torture is OK with you, now is not the time to be queasy.
500 years ago it was considered acceptable in my country to torture someone if they were a) a heretic or b) had allegedly plotted against the monarch. I'm pretty damn glad that we've moved on from those times.
Answer: Yes. I would. Give me a logical answer why you wouldn't.
I thought Estel had.
In my case, I would not because there is no way I could guarantee the information the tortured person would render was actually reliable. People will say
anything if they're being tortured. I'm sure I would. I'm sure I would last under torture for, oh, exactly five minutes.
Yes, they are humans with no concern for other human beings. I'm sorry I have no compassion for them. They are not the victims here, they are perpetrators. They should be an example to others who want to try and do it again.
I don't have compassion for serial killers either. Such people should be brought to trial under due process and if convicted be locked away for life. But that is very different from wanting them to be
tortured.
I completely fail to understand the logic of justifying torture, because to me there is no justification, ever. To me it just comes across as an excuse for visiting extreme violence on people we despise. And we may well despise such people justifiably, if they have committed a horrible crime, but if we believe in ethics and justice and the impartiality of the law, we have no business justifying torture. Once you cross that line, it's a slippery slope.
There will always be collateral damage in a lot of situations my dear, be it a hostage taking, a hijack and war, let's face it I'm not stating that there should always be collateral damage but even a high speed police chase innocent people get hurt. Does that mean the police should slow down and let the criminal speed away.
Of course not.
It's the police's job to catch criminals.
But how is this a justification for torturing said criminal?