Posted on 10/22/2001 5:31:47 PM PDT by Grut
What in God’s name is wrong with all you people who suddenly think using torture to extract information from Arab detainees isn’t just OK, but kinda neat? Don’t you understand that our government is no less prone to occupying every niche available to it today than it was on September 10th? Give them the go-ahead on this and how long do you think it’ll be before YOUR goolies are hooked up to the electrodes? Hint: how long did it take to find out RICO isn’t just for Italians anymore?
This crap about Arabs aren’t citizens so the Constitution doesn’t protect them: their rights come from their being human, not from the Constitution. So do ours. If you really think citizenship affects what rights you have then you have just renounced the whole idea of natural law.
Even legally, there is nothing that I can think of in the Constitution that allows the government to act toward non-citizens much differently than it acts towards citizens except for relatively minor matters like residency and voting rights: certainly, there is nothing which lets it torture them. And remember, the government has only the powers the Constitution explicitly gives it.
OK...OK...(deep breath) I know everybody wants blood and anybody’s will do, but this immediate human response is flat wrong. We are not barbarians, which doesn’t mean we don’t have our barbaric impulses. But it is wrong to give in to them and cut off Achmed’s nose to spite Hassan’s face. Achmed is responsible for Achmed; Hassan for Hassan; is that so hard to understand?
Now, I have posted replies to other articles saying these things; more often than not, the responses (especially from those who should drink less and start later) have called my masculinity into question or suggested my indifference to American deaths. So far as the latter is concerned, more than a million Americans have died in the last 200 years to preserve the Constitution and it seems to me that queer-for-torture Freepers are the ones who are indifferent to their deaths. As for my masculinity - arrggh! forget it, it’s too childish a taunt to respond to.
Someone is bound to ask: if my wife were at grave risk, and I could eliminate that risk by torturing someone, would I? Damn right I would. But I would do it knowing that I would be charged, and tried, and very likely convicted for my actions. There is all the difference in the world between that and the sort of free pass so many Freepers suddenly seem inclined to give the federal government.
People that think that torture is cool want to go straight to hell and they don't want to wait in any lines.
;-)
And, dagnabit, more than 24 hours of Slim Whitman does qualify.
BTW, has Canada paid us reparations for giving us Bryan Adams AND Peter Jennings?
Well Duh.
Gee, that's the best offer I've had all day!
BTW, exactly where and what are my goolies????
I still think the best form torture is having Hitlery do a strip tease in front of each one until they beg to have their eyes burnt out with hot pokers....
NeverGore :^)
Oh go sing Kumbaya around a campfire with the rest of the Girl Scouts. If it bothers you, don't think of it as torture. Think of it as building character. And we are going to build them the Taj Mafreakinhal.
I think it would be safe to say that anyone who commits acts of terrorism against a nation specifically because they don't like what it stands for has, by definition, pretty much thrown these Constitutional rights away.
If some @sshole refuses to recognize U.S. currency as legal tender, would you sell him a new car for 8,000 alligator teeth?
And if they're REALLY tough guys, I have the secret weapon: William Shatner's rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man." MUWHAHAHAHAHA!
I think that this is considered, both consciously and unconsciously, as a unique case.
Should this be considered standard operating procedure? No.
Of course not.
Should this even be trotted out as special treatment for those really tough cases that may come up?
No.
Then why is it being contemplated, you may ask?
It is being contemplated because we are fighting for our survival. Period.
It is being contemplated because our enemy has specifically placed himself and his supporters in the position of being non-human, not just barbaric.
They lie outside their own cultural conscience, their own concept of human behaviour. They lie outside the concept of humanity and the entire species due to their savagery.
They rejoice at the sight of dead children.
This is not the behavior of a human being. They therefore are not fit to breed, breathe, see, or exist.
They do not deserve human rights since they are not human.
That is how this is viewed.
I don't know if I completely disagree.
Thanks to the "War on Drugs" and the now "War on Terrorism" people have fewer rights than ever, but they seem to be willing to give them up more readily. Some of you FReepers out there seem to be willing to sacrifice Constitutional rights, but only if they belong to the other guy. If our Founding Fathers knew that people were being stopped without cause at random roadblocks to further the "War on Drugs," they would spin in their graves.
The question to ask is, are you John Q. Public willing to give up your Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate yourself? Would YOU object to being tortured, or having your wife or your kids tortured?
You already know the answer to your question and that is, there's nothing wrong with them. People are angry and need a place to blow off steam. There is a murderous rage among us that is natural and proper to deal with in this forum. Just because the ideas are expressed here doesn't necessarily mean that everyone expressing them really means them.
Of course, you're correct about individual rights and the government's ability to co-opt them. I can't agree that torturing individuals for information is the right way to go because I think some innocent individuals could be falsely accused and then tortured. But right now, people want to whack 'em. It's good that we want to whack 'em. Hell, I want to whack 'em but cooler heads than mine prevail.
Grut, betcha you'd like to whack 'em too.
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