Trump Promotes Torture

Eventhorizon said:
Im not ok with torture for gaining information. I think data suggests it doesnt work well. Not enough of a cost to return.
But I am very ok with torture for punishment. Say for instance the pos who ran planes into the buildings on 911 did not die. I know its crazy but lets just say they didnt. Id be completely ok with them being burned alive slowly in the middle of Times Square while it was televised. You could start at their feet burning off their toes one by one. Then their feet ect. Youd want to leave their eyes and ears intact so they could see all smiling people and hear them cheering. All the while making sure they stayed conscious through the whole thing. Their screams would be like music. It might even make the top ten.

The one caveat is there would have to be no doubt at all in a persons guilt.
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Bro u ain’t right....

That also makes jihadists look like Braveheart to their fellows and anyone on the fence.
 
Sloe Djinn said:
Bro u ain’t right....

That also makes jihadists look like Braveheart to their fellows and anyone on the fence.
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Im not saying you could dance to it or anything. I think your being a little dramatic.
 
invisible said:
Your contributions of your little torture fantasies to conversation on this serious matter are incredibly childish and unproductive. I'm reporting you for trolling.
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Go for it. Thanks for giving me a heads up. But I have been completely serious. Yes my dance response had a bit of humor in it.
 
infinite dreams said:
Seriously, think about what you're saying. Sanctioning torture? Would there be paid admission to this spectactle? A PPV television audience? I mean if you're gonna turn sadism into a normalized and justified part of society, might as well monetize it to boot.
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infinite dreams said:
Fuck it, I've got a great idea. Let's round up criminals and let them loose, naked and unarmed, in enclosed sports arenas with hungry wild animals. Why didn't someone think of this 2,000 years ago?!
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promo-australia.png
 
Sloe Djinn said:
I guess the reason that I split hairs here is that while I don't dispute that Trump endorsed torture, I don't think that terrible policy/conditions of ICE detention facilities are necessarily a direct result of that. That is of course debatable, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that his stance emboldens or emboldened someone who might craft policy or engage in behavior that encourages or constitutes torture. As such the inhumane, undisputedly condemnable, and inexcusable (regardless of the word used to define them) conditions and policy may amount to torture if enacted to punish or discourage detainees.

In lieu of direct evidence in this particular discussion (and only in the context of the article recently referenced) I think that ICE detention centers have sucked well before Trump arrived, and I’m not sure that they’ve gotten any worse as a direct result of anything that he’s said or done.

Sure it’s crazy that he endorsed it, and that he has publicly endorsed it, and anyone feel free to clarify if I got my details mixed up, but I thought he was specifically endorsing enhanced interrogation as opposed to tormenting ICE detainees. This crosses over into another separate issue, and instead of jumping down that rabbit hole I’ll just say that I don’t agree with the use of torture by our government for any reason, but I still think that in terms of interrogation and detainment of spies and enemy combatants, the use of torture would continue no matter who was president and whether or not they publicly endorse it. That’s part of the “benefit” of having black sites and contractors.

Back to the matter of detainees this brings me to what @invisible mentioned about people who voted for Trump. I just don’t think it’s fair to blame or judge everyone who voted for him based upon the plight of the detainees. I will again stress that I am appalled by what they were and are subjected to, but this is not something that began with the Trump administration and I honestly don’t think there would be that much difference were Hillary, Bernie, or any other candidate in office. Illegal immigrants would still be getting detained, some unfairly and uncompassionately. They would still be subjected to terrible conditions, likely both felons and people who just have illegal status. The proportions may differ with Trump but it would still be happening with anyone else. I would be interested to explore areas of influence such as ICE policy, prison administration, use for-profit prisons, budgeting, oversight, etc. I don’t think (and again I am willing to be convinced otherwise) that such conditions are due to a direct order from the administration to maltreat detainees. It needs to be fixed but I don’t think it’s fair to point a finger specifically at Trump supporters to say this is their fault. I think that it only serves to promote divisiveness. The blame lies on the US as a whole.
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Respectfully disagree with this and reaffirm my prerogative to my original stance. The claim or even the fact that something can never be wiped out is irrelevant to the continued attempts to wipe it out. We strive for a better society incrementally. Administrations moving in the direction of wiping out torture, taking steps in this direction, like Obama's administration, are quite different from administrations which promote torture. And in a democratic system, voters are responsible for that. People who voted for Trump knowingly voted in support of torture. This is how social disasters happen... by a mass of people supporting some inhumane practice and claiming ignorance or some other reason to divest themselves of responsibility. I'll persist in my attitude towards them because it's not OK with me for them to pretend that their vote for torture is not an issue.

Your point about previous conditions of detainment is taken however. But part of my point with this is that there is no purpose in practice to separate intentions of torture. It's not a standardised procedure of intentionality. In practice, as with Trump, it's a permission.
 
@Pin

Thank for taking the time to contribute these interesting remarks. Acknowledging the validity of those remarks.

I'm with @acd (not ganging up, just affirming) in that it becomes increasingly difficult to describe a person as "good" who allows or supports some abhorrent type behaviour.

I'm not a philosopher so I can't talk about this very coherently but I think concepts of morality are founded on some sort of principle of the sanctity of a human being, or of a life of some sort... the protection of it from well, wanton violence. To take the acts back in the other direction, it's a moral futility... it does nothing to develop the moral universe.

I don't think it's the moral equivalent to stage some violence... It's jusy synthetic and stagey and it disrespects survivors of violence by suggesting that the consequences of what happened to them in their own life can be reproduced... it can't. Their suffering and the consequences for their life was unique to them.

Human desires are unlimited and can never be satisfied. It's impossible to satiate the human impulse to violence. There is no controlled violent environment where it's possible to measure that the violence that has been done is enough to satisfy the desire for violence. This practice just culturally normalises and sanctions the idea that violence is constructive. Which is completely distorted... violence is inherently destructive.

Prison is retributive justice. It's a terrible punishment to be deprived of liberty and excluded from participation in society, and to be publicly acknowledged as a parasite on society. Your reputation is lost... no matter what, you will never fully participate in society again.
 
James said:
All the credible evidence about torture is that it doesn't work. People just say whatever they hope will end it. More importantly... It's wrong.

Which is why its illegal.
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Where is it illegal? Who made it illegal? Who defined what torture is?
 
invisible said:
Respectfully disagree with this and reaffirm my prerogative to my original stance. The claim or even the fact that something can never be wiped out is irrelevant to the continued attempts to wipe it out. We strive for a better society incrementally. Administrations moving in the direction of wiping out torture, taking steps in this direction, like Obama's administration, are quite different from administrations which promote torture. And in a democratic system, voters are responsible for that. People who voted for Trump knowingly voted in support of torture. This is how social disasters happen... by a mass of people supporting some inhumane practice and claiming ignorance or some other reason to divest themselves of responsibility. I'll persist in my attitude towards them because it's not OK with me for them to pretend that their vote for torture is not an issue.

Your point about previous conditions of detainment is taken however. But part of my point with this is that there is no purpose in practice to separate intentions of torture. It's not a standardised procedure of intentionality. In practice, as with Trump, it's a permission.
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Yes, Obama took some steps in the direction of wiping out torture, but I look at these with some amount of sobriety because regardless, there are still back doors left open and I don't know to what extent this is a calculated move. Dirty work can still be farmed out to countries loyal to the US, and when this is still possible, it doesn't really hold as much weight to me when a president says that we won't dirty our hands any longer. Here is another Aljazeera article: "Has Obama Banned Torture? Yes and No". I thought it was interesting.

I decided to take a cursory look at whether or not Trump actually loosened the regs on this and there doesn't appear to be anything yet. Here is an excerpt from a blog called Lawfare. Small quote below.

By John J. Farmer, Jr., Edward M. Neafsey
Thursday, March 1, 2018, 8:00 AM

Given President Trump’s enthusiasm, as a presidential candidate, for enhanced interrogation, waterboarding, torture, and “worse,” as well as his eagerness to contrast himself at every opportunity with President Obama, one might have expected to see the use of such methods reinstated after he became President. At the one year mark, however, the issue seems conspicuously absent.
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I am jaded. I take most of the claims of our presidents with a grain of salt. I think Obama is probably a great guy, but I think he learned a pretty hard lesson in that even a president couldn't do things like closing down Guantanamo. We call the US a democracy but I am skeptical, especially when the popular vote doesn't seem to matter. That doesn't absolve us of a societal responsibility to abolish the use of torture, but I think that presidents are more of a distraction or a lightning rod than a solution. I don't know what the actual solution is though.

I can't really blame anyone who doesn't live here (please hear me out) for taking your viewpoint about people who voted for Trump. I would probably do the same if I was not a US citizen. However, because I live here, I don't think I can leave it at that in good conscience. I believe (even if I don't agree with it) that many of the folks who voted for Trump did so because they felt that for whatever reason Hillary was their Trump and that the previous administration was about to squeeze the life out of them and the country, not because they want people tortured. As a citizen, to assert that means that I've given up on any hope of dialogue or understanding, and that I'm actually buying into a rift that Russia has apparently invested a great deal in creating/widening.
 
Eventhorizon said:
Where is it illegal? Who made it illegal? Who defined what torture is?
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The Universal Declaration of human rights, The Geneva convention, and I believe the eighth amendment of the US constitution. Cruel and unusual punishment ?

President Trump himself said having taken legal advice, he wouldn't pursue it. I think even if it was legal, it would be wrong and counter productive.
 
Sloe Djinn said:
Yes, Obama took some steps in the direction of wiping out torture, but I look at these with some amount of sobriety because regardless, there are still back doors left open and I don't know to what extent this is a calculated move. Dirty work can still be farmed out to countries loyal to the US, and when this is still possible, it doesn't really hold as much weight to me when a president says that we won't dirty our hands any longer. Here is another Aljazeera article: "Has Obama Banned Torture? Yes and No". I thought it was interesting.

I decided to take a cursory look at whether or not Trump actually loosened the regs on this and there doesn't appear to be anything yet. Here is an excerpt from a blog called Lawfare. Small quote below.



I am jaded. I take most of the claims of our presidents with a grain of salt. I think Obama is probably a great guy, but I think he learned a pretty hard lesson in that even a president couldn't do things like closing down Guantanamo. We call the US a democracy but I am skeptical, especially when the popular vote doesn't seem to matter. That doesn't absolve us of a societal responsibility to abolish the use of torture, but I think that presidents are more of a distraction or a lightning rod than a solution. I don't know what the actual solution is though.

I can't really blame anyone who doesn't live here (please hear me out) for taking your viewpoint about people who voted for Trump. I would probably do the same if I was not a US citizen. However, because I live here, I don't think I can leave it at that in good conscience. I believe (even if I don't agree with it) that many of the folks who voted for Trump did so because they felt that for whatever reason Hillary was their Trump and that the previous administration was about to squeeze the life out of them and the country, not because they want people tortured. As a citizen, to assert that means that I've given up on any hope of dialogue or understanding, and that I'm actually buying into a rift that Russia has apparently invested a great deal in creating/widening.
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Honestly I have zero kind of personal investment in the personality of Obama. I fully recognise that the problems are entrenched and resistant to change. To cause changes in society takes persistence and dedication to change, courage and fight. Did you hear, in Australia, this was the 40th anniversary year of the gay and lesbian Sydney rights march. The first time it was marched, the protesters were arrested and held in prison... 40 years later marriage has been legalised in Australia... that's how long it took and how much persistence and lobbying to cause change... it didn't happen overnight. So what... marchers should have just quit because the problem is entrenched and resistant to change? Just blame the system and the entrenchment of the problem for the unwillingness to care about dedication to causing change?

I also fully understand that voters would say things to themselves like "I don't actually want people tortured, I just don't want to vote for Hilary". But that's what I meant about how social disasters get caused. Actually, it's not of any consequence that they say to themselves that they don't want people to get tortured, because they're casting their vote in support of torture.

I don't think that voters are unintelligent and incapable of understanding the importance of what they are voting for, or hopelessly susceptible to propaganda and media interference. Or, even if many of them do have this problem, many others of them are perfectly intelligent and capable of understanding. There are so many people who should know better and who are capable of knowing better and capable of understanding the importance of concepts of human rights, who understand what torture is and what it means, who still voted for Trump. They supported torture with their vote. It's not OK.

I don't really care about whether or not the official record states that torture regulations have been loosened. This is US military. The official position stated is that torture is permissible. There's no need to loosen regulations. It's permitted. People can be deprived of their clothing in freezing conditions in detention, without any question of whether it is right or wrong or even whether it is torture or not torture, because torture is stated as permitted by the administration. It's just "inappropriate treatment". Regrettable. No investigation necessary.

I realise how the popular vote works vs the electoral college. America is not a true democracy. But votes are not meaningless, voters are still voting for electoral college. That's why it's important to hold voters accountable and push harder to make every vote count for the electoral college.

I understand as you say that you have given up hope, I differ. I expect people to be responsible and accountable about their voting and stop making lame bullshit excuses about why they voted for torture, and stop pretending like votes for torture aren't causative of torture.
 
Eventhorizon said:
Im not ok with torture for gaining information. I think data suggests it doesnt work well. Not enough of a cost to return.
But I am very ok with torture for punishment. Say for instance the pos who ran planes into the buildings on 911 did not die. I know its crazy but lets just say they didnt. Id be completely ok with them being burned alive slowly in the middle of Times Square while it was televised. You could start at their feet burning off their toes one by one. Then their feet ect. Youd want to leave their eyes and ears intact so they could see all smiling people and hear them cheering. All the while making sure they stayed conscious through the whole thing. Their screams would be like music. It might even make the top ten.

The one caveat is there would have to be no doubt at all in a persons guilt.
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Disgusting.
Perverse.
Inhumane.
Inhuman.
Petty.
Angry.
Hateful.
Devolving.
Fear driven.
Illegal.
Sociopathic.
Sad.

#seekproffesionalhelpnow
 
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