Torture and Terrorism

[Gkhan]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

Torture simply has no place in a free society, it attacks the very core values of a free society. [/quote]

That’s not what Murray Rothbard said:

"In chapter twelve of Ethics, Rothbard turns his attention to suspects arrested by the police. He argues that police should be able to torture certain types of criminal suspects, including accused murderers, for information related to their alleged crime. "[/quote]

BTW, how is the situation with your legs? Are you improving?[/quote]

My legs are fine now thanks pat. Although I’ve got a fair bit of back pain. I’m going to see how it goes over the next few months and might look into surgical options if it doesn’t get better.
[/quote]

Ug, man I am sorry. I just had my 2nd back surgery and currently recovering from it. To say it was painful is the understatement of the year. It hurt like hell, no amount of drugs made it better. So make your decision wisely. I don’t know what kind of surgery you are looking at, but if we’re talking fusion get multiple opinions and get a really good surgeon. If the nurses refer to the surgeon as ‘The Butcher’, find someone else. Also, find out what kind of hardware they intend to use specifically and research the hardware. It makes a difference, who makes it, what the shapes are and what kind of presence you will have in your body, what’s in it besides titanium, etc. Learn from my experience. If you need detailed information I’d be happy to discuss it with you offline.[/quote]

sorry to hear about your surgeries. I’ve had some surgery myself this year.

Out of commission for 3 months back in Jan., back to work now. Both arms were pretty much jacked, but now I’m able to move them more without pain. Will see about working out again on the 23rd. Might have to radically change everything. So it sucks.

[SexMachine]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

Torture simply has no place in a free society, it attacks the very core values of a free society. [/quote]

That’s not what Murray Rothbard said:

"In chapter twelve of Ethics, Rothbard turns his attention to suspects arrested by the police. He argues that police should be able to torture certain types of criminal suspects, including accused murderers, for information related to their alleged crime. "[/quote]

BTW, how is the situation with your legs? Are you improving?[/quote]

My legs are fine now thanks pat. Although I’ve got a fair bit of back pain. I’m going to see how it goes over the next few months and might look into surgical options if it doesn’t get better.
[/quote]

Ug, man I am sorry. I just had my 2nd back surgery and currently recovering from it. To say it was painful is the understatement of the year. It hurt like hell, no amount of drugs made it better. So make your decision wisely. I don’t know what kind of surgery you are looking at, but if we’re talking fusion get multiple opinions and get a really good surgeon. If the nurses refer to the surgeon as ‘The Butcher’, find someone else. Also, find out what kind of hardware they intend to use specifically and research the hardware. It makes a difference, who makes it, what the shapes are and what kind of presence you will have in your body, what’s in it besides titanium, etc. Learn from my experience. If you need detailed information I’d be happy to discuss it with you offline.[/quote]

Thanks pat. I’m trying to manage without surgery for the reasons you mentioned above.

[SexMachine]

[quote]kamui wrote:

Witchcraft was typically a crime commited against the fecundity of your neighbor’s wife or the fertility of his crops.
In both cases and in libertarian terms : a crime against private property.
Granted, it was an imaginary one.
But without the emergence of modern state and the development of its legal system, we would probably still ignore that.

[/quote]

The modern day witch is the islamophobe / racist / homophobe / climate denier. It serves the same function. You can shut down discourse and punish the offender merely by denouncing them.

[NickViar]

[quote]kamui wrote:
If torture can’t be used to obtain a confession, what (the fuck) is the point of torture ? [/quote]
-Ask someone who supports its use; I’m not the man you’re looking for. Rothbard even specified that it could never be used to obtain a confession.

[quote]
Witchcraft was typically a crime commited against the fecundity of your neighbor’s wife or the fertility of his crops.
In both cases and in libertarian terms : a crime against private property.
Granted, it was an imaginary one.
But without the emergence of modern state and the development of its legal system, we would probably still ignore that.[/quote]
-Like I said, witchcraft was not a true crime. It was not a crime against person or property. It was not a crime in libertarian terms.

That’s not my point.
The jurors (or the torturers) may be wrong. They are not intentionally criminals. They don’t deserve the same punishment as a murderer (or a sadistic psycho).

While i’m here, my take on this topic :

Torture should never be legalized.
But it could and should be depenalized under extreme circumstances and in wartime.
(If and only if “extreme circumstances” and “wartime” are not distorted to mean “everytime” and “everywhere”…)

-A man torturing a man he believes to be guilty for information is not intentionally a criminal. I haven’t read through all of the book in question, but I believe that Rothbard sometimes argued that things which would obviously never be widely accepted be permitted in order to remove legitimacy from the state. If that’s not what he was doing, then it’s important to remember that he was an economist.

I don’t believe torture should ever be used(as you already asked, since it can’t produce a legitimate confession, what good is it?). However, I’m fine with legally permitting it, as long as the torture is no more severe than the crime of which the tortured party is guilty(I doubt many would be willing to torture someone if they risked having the same done should their victim be found innocent; if the tortured party is convicted of his crime, then there shouldn’t be any huge issue with using an equal or lesser means of torture on him).

[SexMachine]

[quote]NickViar wrote:

-Like I said, witchcraft was not a true crime. It was not a crime against person or property. It was not a crime in libertarian terms.

[/quote]

Actually it was a crime against private property as kamui stated.

-A man torturing a man he believes to be guilty for information is not intentionally a criminal. I haven’t read through all of the book in question, but I believe that Rothbard sometimes argued that things which would obviously never be widely accepted be permitted in order to remove legitimacy from the state. If that’s not what he was doing, then it’s important to remember that he was an economist.

He was one of the group of sycophants who hung around Hayek as he became an increasingly isolated and radical figure. Rothbard’s claim to fame was setting the agenda for a particular faction of libertarianism - he basically poisoned the well by associating it with the extreme isolationism of the old right and the historical revisionism of holocaust deniers and neo-Confederates.

[quote]
I don’t believe torture should ever be used(as you already asked, since it can’t produce a legitimate confession, what good is it?). However, I’m fine with legally permitting it, as long as the torture is no more severe than the crime of which the tortured party is guilty(I doubt many would be willing to torture someone if they risked having the same done should their victim be found innocent; if the tortured party is convicted of his crime, then there shouldn’t be any huge issue with using an equal or lesser means of torture on him).[/quote]

Great theory. So the police are expected to be able to preempt the outcome of a trial? So if the guy is found guilty the cop is a hero but if the prosecutors fuck the case up or the jury makes a stupid decision the cop goes to prison for assault occasioning grievous bodily harm or malicious wounding or something? It’s batshit like Rothbard.

[pat]

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

Torture simply has no place in a free society, it attacks the very core values of a free society. [/quote]

That’s not what Murray Rothbard said:

"In chapter twelve of Ethics, Rothbard turns his attention to suspects arrested by the police. He argues that police should be able to torture certain types of criminal suspects, including accused murderers, for information related to their alleged crime. "[/quote]

BTW, how is the situation with your legs? Are you improving?[/quote]

My legs are fine now thanks pat. Although I’ve got a fair bit of back pain. I’m going to see how it goes over the next few months and might look into surgical options if it doesn’t get better.
[/quote]

Ug, man I am sorry. I just had my 2nd back surgery and currently recovering from it. To say it was painful is the understatement of the year. It hurt like hell, no amount of drugs made it better. So make your decision wisely. I don’t know what kind of surgery you are looking at, but if we’re talking fusion get multiple opinions and get a really good surgeon. If the nurses refer to the surgeon as ‘The Butcher’, find someone else. Also, find out what kind of hardware they intend to use specifically and research the hardware. It makes a difference, who makes it, what the shapes are and what kind of presence you will have in your body, what’s in it besides titanium, etc. Learn from my experience. If you need detailed information I’d be happy to discuss it with you offline.[/quote]

Thanks pat. I’m trying to manage without surgery for the reasons you mentioned above.
[/quote]

Sure man. I hope my lessons learned from my experiences can be useful to someone else, they are painful lessons…I wish I knew and I thought I researched everything pretty well. But I ended up with a dick surgeon. Anyway, hope you heal soon…

[pat]

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

Torture simply has no place in a free society, it attacks the very core values of a free society. [/quote]

That’s not what Murray Rothbard said:

"In chapter twelve of Ethics, Rothbard turns his attention to suspects arrested by the police. He argues that police should be able to torture certain types of criminal suspects, including accused murderers, for information related to their alleged crime. "[/quote]

BTW, how is the situation with your legs? Are you improving?[/quote]

My legs are fine now thanks pat. Although I’ve got a fair bit of back pain. I’m going to see how it goes over the next few months and might look into surgical options if it doesn’t get better.
[/quote]

Ug, man I am sorry. I just had my 2nd back surgery and currently recovering from it. To say it was painful is the understatement of the year. It hurt like hell, no amount of drugs made it better. So make your decision wisely. I don’t know what kind of surgery you are looking at, but if we’re talking fusion get multiple opinions and get a really good surgeon. If the nurses refer to the surgeon as ‘The Butcher’, find someone else. Also, find out what kind of hardware they intend to use specifically and research the hardware. It makes a difference, who makes it, what the shapes are and what kind of presence you will have in your body, what’s in it besides titanium, etc. Learn from my experience. If you need detailed information I’d be happy to discuss it with you offline.[/quote]

sorry to hear about your surgeries. I’ve had some surgery myself this year.

Out of commission for 3 months back in Jan., back to work now. Both arms were pretty much jacked, but now I’m able to move them more without pain. Will see about working out again on the 23rd. Might have to radically change everything. So it sucks.
[/quote]
Thanks man, you will have to change stuff, but you will figure it out.
I am hijacking so I will quit whining about my back issues. Maybe we can start a chronic pain whining thread.

[pat]

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]NickViar wrote:

Do you disagree?

[/quote]

Yes, I disagree.

I’m fairly certain(can’t say that I’m 100% certain) I have seen you argue in favor of capital punishment, so why should torturing a guilty man be a problem?

I support capital punishment for premeditated murder after a fair trial and right of appeal etc. I don’t support police having a “right” to torture a suspect.
[/quote]

How did this turn into police torture?
No police shouldn’t be able to torture anybody. Damn the slippery slope that would create is ridiculous to even think about.
I get the urge to want to hurt really evil people but it’s more important to protect the innocent than to get the satisfaction of being able to torture a child rapist or something like it.

[pat]

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
If torture can’t be used to obtain a confession, what (the fuck) is the point of torture ? [/quote]
-Ask someone who supports its use; I’m not the man you’re looking for. Rothbard even specified that it could never be used to obtain a confession.

[quote]
Witchcraft was typically a crime commited against the fecundity of your neighbor’s wife or the fertility of his crops.
In both cases and in libertarian terms : a crime against private property.
Granted, it was an imaginary one.
But without the emergence of modern state and the development of its legal system, we would probably still ignore that.[/quote]
-Like I said, witchcraft was not a true crime. It was not a crime against person or property. It was not a crime in libertarian terms.

That’s not my point.
The jurors (or the torturers) may be wrong. They are not intentionally criminals. They don’t deserve the same punishment as a murderer (or a sadistic psycho).

While i’m here, my take on this topic :

Torture should never be legalized.
But it could and should be depenalized under extreme circumstances and in wartime.
(If and only if “extreme circumstances” and “wartime” are not distorted to mean “everytime” and “everywhere”…)

-A man torturing a man he believes to be guilty for information is not intentionally a criminal. I haven’t read through all of the book in question, but I believe that Rothbard sometimes argued that things which would obviously never be widely accepted be permitted in order to remove legitimacy from the state. If that’s not what he was doing, then it’s important to remember that he was an economist.

I don’t believe torture should ever be used(as you already asked, since it can’t produce a legitimate confession, what good is it?). However, I’m fine with legally permitting it, as long as the torture is no more severe than the crime of which the tortured party is guilty(I doubt many would be willing to torture someone if they risked having the same done should their victim be found innocent; if the tortured party is convicted of his crime, then there shouldn’t be any huge issue with using an equal or lesser means of torture on him).[/quote]

If we are ever going to error, we should error on the side of not torturing anybody.
If it’s to be done, it needs to be done only for the reasons of getting information out of somebody that can impact a lot of lives and you don’t have time to waste.
You start torturing for other reasons and the risk of abuse of this tactic will get out hand quickly.

Do I have a problem if some real awful criminal against humanity suffers? Well, not really, I can turn a blind eye with certain people in the world. But not at the risk of letting a tactic like torture be abused by authorities. It’s the kind of thing that would get out of hand quickly and the ‘line’ where it’s considered ok would move constantly. Authorities would be justifying it for anything.
Hell look at the Middle East where they stone women for adultery and hang gay people. If we think stuff like that can’t happen here we’re being naive.

It’s also naive to think that we don’t do it, or civilized countries don’t do it because we pay lip service to not doing it. It’s done in deep dark places we don’t know exist or even want to know. There’s a dark part of our world where people play dirty…

And before it even starts, no I don’t know for an absolute fact. Based on people who have revealed such things occurring in the past, when we wouldn’t have anymore reason to believe it then as now gives me enough reason to believe such things happen now too.
If nothing else, it’s safer to suspect it and not be surprised then it is to believe it doesn’t happen and then find out it does.

[pat]

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]Chushin wrote:
This may be a laughable question, but why don’t we have the pharmacological technology to force people to tell the truth with little or no pain?[/quote]

They just haven’t found a reliable and effective truth serum yet.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_serum[/quote]

Well, not that we know of. Liquor seems to work pretty good. People admit some outlandish shit when they are drunk.

[SexMachine]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]NickViar wrote:

Do you disagree?

[/quote]

Yes, I disagree.

I’m fairly certain(can’t say that I’m 100% certain) I have seen you argue in favor of capital punishment, so why should torturing a guilty man be a problem?

I support capital punishment for premeditated murder after a fair trial and right of appeal etc. I don’t support police having a “right” to torture a suspect.
[/quote]

How did this turn into police torture?
No police shouldn’t be able to torture anybody. Damn the slippery slope that would create is ridiculous to even think about.
I get the urge to want to hurt really evil people but it’s more important to protect the innocent than to get the satisfaction of being able to torture a child rapist or something like it.[/quote]

Yeah my position is pretty similar to kamui’s. I don’t think the police should torture anyone for any reason but I can envisage instances of where military/intelligence may have a valid reason for using “coersive methods” to extract information from terrorists.

[NickViar]

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Actually it was a crime against private property as kamui stated.[/quote]
-It was imagined. Claiming witchcraft is a crime against private property is something like saying that I would be guilty of a crime if I was to stop maintaining my property, thereby decreasing the value of my neighbors’ properties. It’s like saying producers of potato chips are guilty of damaging (over)consumers’ bodies. It IS saying that I am guilty of a crime against my neighbor if he plants an ugly bush in his yard and I say, “Please let that thing die.”

Great theory. So the police are expected to be able to preempt the outcome of a trial? So if the guy is found guilty the cop is a hero but if the prosecutors fuck the case up or the jury makes a stupid decision the cop goes to prison for assault occasioning grievous bodily harm or malicious wounding or something? It’s batshit like Rothbard.

-The police are expected to act as any other. How often do you think torture would be employed if its justification was dependent upon the decision of 12 strangers(one or more of which could be opposed to torture and decide for the accused no matter what, if torture is used against him)? The whole point is that there’s nothing wrong with torturing a man(provided that the torture is no more severe than his crime-what is 40 years in prison if not torture?), and the police should have no special privileges.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzYJYSm-MfI

[NickViar]

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Yeah my position is pretty similar to kamui’s. I don’t think the police should torture anyone for any reason but I can envisage instances of where military/intelligence may have a valid reason for using “coersive methods” to extract information from terrorists.[/quote]

If you believe the military/intelligence can have a valid reason for using torture, why can’t police(military and police are just two sides of the same coin-one is supposed to protect citizens from domestic threats, the other from foreign)? I oppose torture in all instances. I just can’t see a reason for it. If torture is necessary to obtain the information, what makes you think the information is reliable and not just blurted out to end the torture?

[jjackkrash]

[quote]orion wrote:
As for the ticking time bomb scenario, hard cases make for bad laws and all that.

If a man knew where a nuclear device was hidden in Manhattan and it was ready to go off, I would be willing personally to take a cattle prod to his balls, but I would expect to be put on trial and sentenced afterwards.

If there is one thing I am sure of is that government grows like a cancer whenever it can.

Once torture is introduced as a legitimate tool of government it will not be confined to terrorists, it will not be confined to the most severe cases, it will not be confined period.

Torture simply has no place in a free society, it attacks the very core values of a free society. [/quote]

IMO, torture should be a crime subject only to a very limited and defined affirmative defense of necessity/justification limited to a quick-fuse-ticking-time-bomb-like scenario above. And every instance of its use should subject the torturer to trial where he has the burden of proof on the defense based on clear and convincing evidence. The presumption should never be that its acceptable and it should never be part of any authorized standard practice.

[SexMachine]

[quote]NickViar wrote:

-It was imagined. Claiming witchcraft is a crime against private property is something like saying that I would be guilty of a crime if I was to stop maintaining my property, thereby decreasing the value of my neighbors’ properties. It’s like saying producers of potato chips are guilty of damaging (over)consumers’ bodies. It IS saying that I am guilty of a crime against my neighbor if he plants an ugly bush in his yard and I say, “Please let that thing die.”

[/quote]

It may be imagined but it’s not like any of those examples. It would be like if I spread poison on my neighbour’s fields destroying the soil.

-The police are expected to act as any other. How often do you think torture would be employed if its justification was dependent upon the decision of 12 strangers(one or more of which could be opposed to torture and decide for the accused no matter what, if torture is used against him)? The whole point is that there’s nothing wrong with torturing a man(provided that the torture is no more severe than his crime-what is 40 years in prison if not torture?), and the police should have no special privileges.

It’s legalised physical torture of suspects. How often it would occur is pure speculation.

[SexMachine]

[quote]NickViar wrote:

If you believe the military/intelligence can have a valid reason for using torture, why can’t police(military and police are just two sides of the same coin-one is supposed to protect citizens from domestic threats, the other from foreign)?
[/quote]

Because ordinary crime and terrorism are two different things. Terrorism is war against the people and the state. The rules of war and the civil society are different.

[quote]

I oppose torture in all instances. I just can’t see a reason for it. If torture is necessary to obtain the information, what makes you think the information is reliable and not just blurted out to end the torture? [/quote]

Verify the information given.

[pittbulll]

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]NickViar wrote:

If you believe the military/intelligence can have a valid reason for using torture, why can’t police(military and police are just two sides of the same coin-one is supposed to protect citizens from domestic threats, the other from foreign)?
[/quote]

Because ordinary crime and terrorism are two different things. Terrorism is war against the people and the state. The rules of war and the civil society are different.

[quote]

I oppose torture in all instances. I just can’t see a reason for it. If torture is necessary to obtain the information, what makes you think the information is reliable and not just blurted out to end the torture? [/quote]

Verify the information given.[/quote]

I also demand , verify your opinion

[NickViar]

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
It may be imagined but it’s not like any of those examples. It would be like if I spread poison on my neighbour’s fields destroying the soil.
[/quote]

-I must admit that I am puzzled by this answer. Witchcraft only works when the environment cooperates(I can curse your field, but it’s only going to work if the rain doesn’t come, etc.), but it’s not like producing a food that only makes people fat if they choose to (over)consume it? Incantations=poison?