[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
orion wrote:
Will they wear a uniform?
That! and they will have a look of dullness and uselessness about them.
But they will also drive nice cars – as all heroes should – thanks to hardworking sla…er…I mean taxpayers.[/quote]
Oh contraire!
For I have seen them on TV and they are sharp, eagle eyed heroes that dress in designer suits and know kung fu!
And once every month, under the full moon, they make love to the American Flag…
[quote]orion wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
orion wrote:
Will they wear a uniform?
That! and they will have a look of dullness and uselessness about them.
But they will also drive nice cars – as all heroes should – thanks to hardworking sla…er…I mean taxpayers.
Oh contraire!
For I have seen them on TV and they are sharp, eagle eyed heroes that dress in designer suits and know kung fu!
And once every month, under the full moon, they make love to the American Flag…[/quote]
The easiest way for you to know it’s them is to just assume everyone is them. So if someone tells you to do anything you had better do it just in case it is one of them. You know, that way the torture might be a little easier if you are complying with thier demands.
V
Hence my concern about limits and how you would go about placing them. What is reasonable and what isn’t when it comes to torture?
[quote]Makavali wrote:
Hence my concern about limits and how you would go about placing them. What is reasonable and what isn’t when it comes to torture?[/quote]
I’m concerned about limits also, which is why I am against the use of torture. What is reasonable to one person might be not reasonable to another. Behind closed doors you have now idea what an individual is going to do. If you say for example, you can do anything you want to them but no permanant physical damage, well if you start cutting someone with a razor blade, it’s going to eventually heal, is that right to do? What if during waterboarding someone accidentally inhales the water and ends up actually drowning as a result? what if someone has a heart attack because of the stress of the waterboarding or torture? This may have been an individual who was simply brainwashed into thinking we were the bad guys. Maybe if you had treated him with dignity and respect, as an individual who is massivly misinformed to think we are evil, maybe they guy realizes hey these people really aren’t evil and the guys who told me they were are the crazy ones. And then he starts spilling the beans. But if you waterboarded him and did other forms of torture, he will NEVER believe anything other than exactly what he has been told all along. That we are in fact evil, which will probably only strengthen his resolve.
Here is another way to look at it. If you were captured and your captives wanted to know where your family lived so they could go rape and kill them, how much torturing could you endure before you told them where your family was? Would any amount of torture EVER get you to give up the location of your family, ensuring thier doom?
V
Actually thinking there’s a meaningful equivalence between terrorists and the automobile, and trying to argue on that basis is explainable only by serious mental disease.
Why can’t you folk grasp that individuals who:
Take up arms against the United States, but not according to the Geneva Convention or as any sort of uniformed miltary
Engage in terrorist acts or attempts to murder US military personnel (as they are not engaged in legal warfare, what they are doing is murder)
Are not US citizens
are not in a category deserving of all your fucking whining, nor in a category entitled to protections of the US Constitution or Geneva Convention, and frankly you ought to be applauding the United States for not inflicting physical pain or injury on them as vast numbers of countries in the world in fact do?
Boo-hoo, they underwent something that didn’t injure them and was terrifying. Or they were fucking sleep derived. WaaaaaaaaAAAAAH! The poor terrorists!
Don’t you have more things to be concerned about that are more deserving of your consideration?
But no: the main thing is supporting any enemy of the United States, and criticizing the US in any way possible. There’s little in your lives that is more important than that.
So no wonder your little nerves are all frazzled from terrorists being waterboarded, or having to wear panties on their heads. You just can’t stand that.
Islamic extremists beheading people, that doesn’t bother you. Not worth your criticism. Their blowing up women and children, naaah, that doesn’t earn your criticism. Communists killing people by the tens of millions: nope, instead criticize the US for helping them be driven out of a country they were adding to their list of oppressed peoples.
Predictable. Perhaps someday there will be a cure for your mental disorder.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Why can’t you folk grasp that individuals who:
Take up arms against the United States, but not according to the Geneva Convention or as any sort of uniformed miltary
Engage in terrorist acts or attempts to murder US military personnel (as they are not engaged in legal warfare, what they are doing is murder)
Are not US citizens
are not in a category deserving of all your fucking whining, nor in a category entitled to protections of the US Constitution or Geneva Convention, and frankly you ought to be applauding the United States for not inflicting physical pain or injury on them as vast numbers of countries in the world in fact do?
Boo-hoo, they underwent something that didn’t injure them and was terrifying. Or they were fucking sleep derived. WaaaaaaaaAAAAAH! The poor terrorists!
Don’t you have more things to be concerned about that are more deserving of your consideration?
But no: the main thing is supporting any enemy of the United States, and criticizing the US in any way possible. There’s little in your lives that is more important than that.
So no wonder your little nerves are all frazzled from terrorists being waterboarded, or having to wear panties on their heads. You just can’t stand that.
Islamic extremists beheading people, that doesn’t bother you. Not worth your criticism. Their blowing up women and children, naaah, that doesn’t earn your criticism. Communists killing people by the tens of millions: nope, instead criticize the US for helping them be driven out of a country they were adding to their list of oppressed peoples.
Predictable. Perhaps someday there will be a cure for your mental disorder.[/quote]
In no way shape or form did you even provide an argument for torture. All you did was state some facts that are designed to rile people up into a frenzy and then question our patriotism, and our sanity, for supposedly not being effected by the information in the same way you are.
What don’t you understand about it not working in the first place and it being evil, which coincidentally will be the downfall of our beloved country much faster than any outside threat could ever be. In your blind rage to protect the homeland by any means against all enemies, you lose sight of the fact that we got this way by being more just, more rational, more intelligent, than any other nation in the world. Blind rage and anger towards third world gorillas doesn’t display any of the virtues which CREATED our country. And since things are never standing still, if your not continuing to create the country, you are destroying it. One straw on the camels back at a time.
Also nobody is crying or whining, we are debating the merits or lack therof of a HIGHLY controvertial interrogation technique. If you can’t see how this topic deserves to be debated then you really have consumed your fill of neocon kool-aid.
V
[quote]Vegita wrote:
In no way shape or form did you even provide an argument for torture.[/quote]
Why would I have wanted to?
I don’t grant waterboarding, as the US does it, is torture (no injury, no pain.)
Nor sleep deprivation as torture.
Nor panties on head as torture.
What, that there is no injury or pain, or that the people in question are not comparable to the automobile, or that the people in question have taken up arms against the US and murdered or attempted to murder US citizens, etc?
WaaaaAAAAAAH!!!
Funny how those of your spectrum always trot that out.
Sure… when you do insane things like act as if there is an equivalence between terrorists and the automobile, and try to “reason” according to what we would or should do regarding the automobile as basis for what we should do with terrorists, why should your sanity not be in deep question?
Goodbye: I would be insane myself to go back and forth with someone as far removed from reality and sane thinking as you are (at least on issues that are trigger points for your problems, as this obviously is.)
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Vegita wrote:
In no way shape or form did you even provide an argument for torture.
Why would I have wanted to?
I don’t grant waterboarding, as the US does it, is torture (no injury, no pain.)
Nor sleep deprivation as torture.
Nor panties on head as torture.
All you did was state some facts that are designed to rile people up into a frenzy
What, that there is no injury or pain, or that the people in question are not comparable to the automobile, or that the people in question have taken up arms against the US and murdered or attempted to murder US citizens, etc?
and then question our patriotism,
WaaaaAAAAAAH!!!
Funny how those of your spectrum always trot that out.
and our sanity,
Sure… when you do insane things like act as if there is an equivalence between terrorists and the automobile, and try to “reason” according to what we would or should do regarding the automobile as basis for what we should do with terrorists, why should your sanity not be in deep question?
Goodbye: I would be insane myself to go back and forth with someone as far removed from reality and sane thinking as you are (at least on issues that are trigger points for your problems, as this obviously is.)
[/quote]
Yea buddy, whatever. Look we come here to discuss things, you can call people all the names you want, the fact remains, I am providing my thinking on the matter and opening it up for counter argument and discussion. You are just name calling and attacking me as a person and not my argument, so really I would prefer you do sit this one out. (in a page from your book) At least until you are emotionally stable enough to discuss viewpoints other than your own in a reasonabl civil manner.
BTW if I get what you are saying, you don’t condone torture either, you just don’t think certain things I might consider torture, are actually torture. Which in and of itself, is an entirely different debate. I was arguing that torture, by whatever definition one describes it is wrong. As I said, a new thread would need to be opened on what is and what isn’t torture. So if you agree with me that “Torture” is wrong, and you called me crazy, does that make you crazy as well?
V
[quote]Rockscar wrote:
The Principle that allow the voters voice and majority vote to be quashed by a few court crooks in robes?[/quote]
That’s the court’s job. When a majority of people want to do something that’s against the law or the constitution, the courts are there to stop it. If the courts always upheld majority votes, then you’d have mob rule and could simply do away with them.
If the majority is displeased, they can get the laws or the constitution changed or amended. But the standards and required majorities there are much harder to meet. A good thing too.
It’s always amusing to see people who have the good fortune of having been born in a country based on law and order complain about having a court system that works as intended.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Actually thinking there’s a meaningful equivalence between terrorists and the automobile, and trying to argue on that basis is explainable only by serious mental disease.
Why can’t you folk grasp that individuals who:
Take up arms against the United States, but not according to the Geneva Convention or as any sort of uniformed miltary
Engage in terrorist acts or attempts to murder US military personnel (as they are not engaged in legal warfare, what they are doing is murder)
Are not US citizens
are not in a category deserving of all your fucking whining, nor in a category entitled to protections of the US Constitution or Geneva Convention, and frankly you ought to be applauding the United States for not inflicting physical pain or injury on them as vast numbers of countries in the world in fact do?
Boo-hoo, they underwent something that didn’t injure them and was terrifying. Or they were fucking sleep derived. WaaaaaaaaAAAAAH! The poor terrorists!
Don’t you have more things to be concerned about that are more deserving of your consideration?
But no: the main thing is supporting any enemy of the United States, and criticizing the US in any way possible. There’s little in your lives that is more important than that.
So no wonder your little nerves are all frazzled from terrorists being waterboarded, or having to wear panties on their heads. You just can’t stand that.
Islamic extremists beheading people, that doesn’t bother you. Not worth your criticism. Their blowing up women and children, naaah, that doesn’t earn your criticism. Communists killing people by the tens of millions: nope, instead criticize the US for helping them be driven out of a country they were adding to their list of oppressed peoples.
Predictable. Perhaps someday there will be a cure for your mental disorder.[/quote]
Agreed. And don’t forget the bugs. We can’t stick caterpillars on them now if they’re afraid of bugs. Shit I did on a schoolyard to a girl that might have gotten a stern look from the teacher is now a crime? Pussies.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Actually thinking there’s a meaningful equivalence between terrorists and the automobile, and trying to argue on that basis is explainable only by serious mental disease.
Why can’t you folk grasp that individuals who:
Take up arms against the United States, but not according to the Geneva Convention or as any sort of uniformed miltary
Engage in terrorist acts or attempts to murder US military personnel (as they are not engaged in legal warfare, what they are doing is murder)
Are not US citizens
are not in a category deserving of all your fucking whining, nor in a category entitled to protections of the US Constitution or Geneva Convention, and frankly you ought to be applauding the United States for not inflicting physical pain or injury on them as vast numbers of countries in the world in fact do?
Boo-hoo, they underwent something that didn’t injure them and was terrifying. Or they were fucking sleep derived. WaaaaaaaaAAAAAH! The poor terrorists!
Don’t you have more things to be concerned about that are more deserving of your consideration?
But no: the main thing is supporting any enemy of the United States, and criticizing the US in any way possible. There’s little in your lives that is more important than that.
[/quote]
Ah, the tried and true play, criticizing the patriotism of the people you’re arguing against. Because I don’t support torturing our enemies, and because I don’t feel it necessary to make the blindingly obvious point that our enemies do far worse, I must hate America. The 21st century GOP, ladies and gentlemen.
[quote]pookie wrote:
Rockscar wrote:
The Principle that allow the voters voice and majority vote to be quashed by a few court crooks in robes?
That’s the court’s job. When a majority of people want to do something that’s against the law or the constitution, the courts are there to stop it. If the courts always upheld majority votes, then you’d have mob rule and could simply do away with them.
If the majority is displeased, they can get the laws or the constitution changed or amended. But the standards and required majorities there are much harder to meet. A good thing too.
It’s always amusing to see people who have the good fortune of having been born in a country based on law and order complain about having a court system that works as intended.
[/quote]
na clearly countries where hoards of well armed people drive around the country enforcing laws deemed good by the majority are functioning better than our criminal checks and balances.
Here’s an even better question for the torture advocates: does the president have the right to threaten or even torture the children of captured enemy combatants? Because John Yoo, author of the torture memos, maintains that he does. Would love to hear your answers on this, which is a far more valid hypothetical than the “ticking time bomb.”
[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Here’s an even better question for the torture advocates: does the president have the right to threaten or even torture the children of captured enemy combatants? Because John Yoo, author of the torture memos, maintains that he does. Would love to hear your answers on this, which is a far more valid hypothetical than the “ticking time bomb.”[/quote]
well if its apparently OK to torture people becuase they MIGHT know something, i highly doubt these people would have any qualms with torturing their children. Ya never know, those kids MIGHT know something.
one of these days its going to turn inwards. people here already stated they would torture anyone if it would save their family or themselves. Its only a matter of time till their convinced Americans aren’t immune from this either.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Actually thinking there’s a meaningful equivalence between terrorists and the automobile, and trying to argue on that basis is explainable only by serious mental disease.
Why can’t you folk grasp that individuals who:
Take up arms against the United States, but not according to the Geneva Convention or as any sort of uniformed miltary
Engage in terrorist acts or attempts to murder US military personnel (as they are not engaged in legal warfare, what they are doing is murder)
Are not US citizens
are not in a category deserving of all your fucking whining, nor in a category entitled to protections of the US Constitution or Geneva Convention, and frankly you ought to be applauding the United States for not inflicting physical pain or injury on them as vast numbers of countries in the world in fact do?
Boo-hoo, they underwent something that didn’t injure them and was terrifying. Or they were fucking sleep derived. WaaaaaaaaAAAAAH! The poor terrorists!
Don’t you have more things to be concerned about that are more deserving of your consideration?
But no: the main thing is supporting any enemy of the United States, and criticizing the US in any way possible. There’s little in your lives that is more important than that.
So no wonder your little nerves are all frazzled from terrorists being waterboarded, or having to wear panties on their heads. You just can’t stand that.
Islamic extremists beheading people, that doesn’t bother you. Not worth your criticism. Their blowing up women and children, naaah, that doesn’t earn your criticism. Communists killing people by the tens of millions: nope, instead criticize the US for helping them be driven out of a country they were adding to their list of oppressed peoples.
Predictable. Perhaps someday there will be a cure for your mental disorder.[/quote]
You are soooo uncilivized. (sipping tea with pinky in the air)
[quote]pookie wrote:
Rockscar wrote:
The Principle that allow the voters voice and majority vote to be quashed by a few court crooks in robes?
That’s the court’s job. When a majority of people want to do something that’s against the law or the constitution, the courts are there to stop it. If the courts always upheld majority votes, then you’d have mob rule and could simply do away with them.
[/quote]
Quite true. The constitution protects majorities from minorities, and minoritie from majorities. At least it was supposed to. That’s not quite the way it has worked out.
[/quote]
If the majority is displeased, they can get the laws or the constitution changed or amended. But the standards and required majorities there are much harder to meet. A good thing too.
[/quote]
spot on.
Ok, you lost me here big time. The court system has been broken since John Jay and progressively (pun intended) gotten worse.
[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Here’s an even better question for the torture advocates: does the president have the right to threaten or even torture the children of captured enemy combatants? Because John Yoo, author of the torture memos, maintains that he does. Would love to hear your answers on this, which is a far more valid hypothetical than the “ticking time bomb.”[/quote]
no.
Captured enemy combatants should be interogated (or tortured if you like) based on best practices sorted by educated professionals. The president, or any politician, should not be weighing in on tactics. Give you best men the mission and let them do their jobs.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Actually thinking there’s a meaningful equivalence between terrorists and the automobile, and trying to argue on that basis is explainable only by serious mental disease.
Why can’t you folk grasp that individuals who:
Take up arms against the United States, but not according to the Geneva Convention or as any sort of uniformed miltary
Engage in terrorist acts or attempts to murder US military personnel (as they are not engaged in legal warfare, what they are doing is murder)
Are not US citizens
are not in a category deserving of all your fucking whining, nor in a category entitled to protections of the US Constitution or Geneva Convention, and frankly you ought to be applauding the United States for not inflicting physical pain or injury on them as vast numbers of countries in the world in fact do?
[/quote]
And again, they fall under the Geneva convention one way or the other and even if that weren�´t so it would still have to be determined by a tribunal under the rules of the Geneva Convention. So the US is in violation of that treaty no matter how you spin it.
As anyone interested in facts and not only opinions knows, what the US did to them awaiting those trials is highly “verboten” under yes, the Geneva convention.
The US Supreme court has ruled in Hamdan vs Rumsfeld that those detainees at least fall under article 3 of the 2. Geneva convention which reads as follows:
Art 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following
provisions:
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
Secondly, nobody “falls under the protection of the constitution”. The constitution of the US does not protect US citizens per se but limits the powers of the federal government. In this case not only your legal reasoning is flawed but the very understanding of what a “constitution” actually is.
Seriously.
[quote]Rockscar wrote:
Who’s principles? Yours? Mine? The one that makes it ok to kill unwanted children? The Principle that allow the voters voice and majority vote to be quashed by a few court crooks in robes? [/quote]
If you want to live in a Republic that is exactly their job.
Would you rather live in a Democracy?
And here is the real kicker, IF some of these people DO NOT fall under the Geneva Convention it is because they were kidnapped outside of one of the war zones as for example some German and Italian Muslims were.
Those would of course simply be kidnappings and some CIA operatives would do good to avoid Europe for the next 20 years or so-