Comments Posted By busboy33
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blockhead:
Maybe because the general perception among the general population is that "R" = "non-moderate". It would be great if all voters carefully and responsibility studied each individual candidate to get a solid grasp of their principled and philosophies as individuals . . . but generalizations rule the day.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 30.04.2009 @ 18:47
Maybe Mr. M. is saying that the Reds need to "put forth moderates" by convincing the populace that they are open to Moderates and their ideas.
THE MORAL PARAMETERS OF TORTURE
@ manning:
If there is such as thing as the appropriate procedure for torture, that is it. That's what the government should do.
I suppose it comes down to faith in the government. The Legislative branch SHOULD set spending by carefully and objectively assessing the pros and cons of all spending and income generating proposals. After open, through and objective debate on each merit, the representatives of the citizens should set the most frugal budget that practicality should allow. They SHOULD do it this way . . . but I don't think that there's anybody here that thinks they actually DO it that way. Heck, most of them admit they don't even read the stuff they "debate"."The answer, then, is: despite high expectations, especially of saving lives, and despite a careful identification of the probable knowledge of the captive, we do not know going in what the result of any form of interrogation may be, and the possible failure to garner anything of importance is always present."
Given the odds of torture potentially failing to yield worthwile results, and given the odds that it will be abused and inporperly implemened, how can we as a people give it the benefit of the doubt? Why are we assuming it was all for the greater good rather than assuming it was wrong?
I've got no problem with brutal, bloodthirsty murders being locked away in Gitmo for life. We SHOULD make "a careful identification of the probable [culpability] of the captive" . . . but we've released hundreds of people because we didn't. They had one guy released when the tribunal finally (after years of detainment) finally laid out the basis for the "careful assessment" of his guilt -- the killing of a subject in the Mideast. As soon as he found out what the accusations was, his advocate literally used a cell phone to call the "victim", who was alive and well.One of the bedrock principles of America (and I always assumed of Conservatism itself) was that we don't trust the government do do what they should. Checks and balances are totally unnecessary if the players are doing what they should. But they don't.
Accepting all of those procedures you proposed as absolutely, irrefutabily true, let me add one final caveat:
10. unless each and every one of these 9 rules is strictly adhered to, the system is guaranteed to not work properly.
It MIGHT be worth it to torture a prisoner. It could yield life-saving results. I could gab this guy walking down the street, torture them, and it might yield life-saving results . . . I might find out that he's a serial killer. But I shouldn't precisely because I haven't followed those 9 steps. I don't have objectively justifiable information sufficient to cross that line, despite the potential benefit of doing so. "I thought it was the right thing to do" will not save me if I'm wrong, and "I was afraid he was going to hurt me" might be understandable but its not going to absolve what heppened.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 30.04.2009 @ 19:36
@Nagarajan Sivakumar #17:
From the L.A. Times article you cited:
"Exhibit A in the case for torture: Defenders of the practice say the waterboarding of Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced information that allowed the U.S government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles in 2002."
This would be a great argument for the use of torture (even setting aside that the FBI called the plot "laughable" [L.A. Times September 8, 2005]). It does have a small problem, though -- KSM was captured in March 2003. Even assuming torture is effective and justifiable, it can't (as far as I know) help with traveling back thru time, although I do admit that if it can actually be used for time travel we should do it for that reason alone.
The two links don't have any hard witnesses, just lots of "trust me"s. Even the Bybee Memo just says that the CIA told him it was great information . . . and the few facts that it claims that can be independently verified (like the Liberty Tower plot) have failed to stand up to scrutiny.
Whereas the people that have spoken out directly on the topic have (as far as I know) universally denied how effective torture was:
"It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.
We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rssIF torture did disrupt a legit plot, then fine. I've said before . . . I can't wait to see what Cheney is trying to declassify. I honestly hope it does provide some justification. Self defense is an absolutely acceptable rationale.
--BUT--
Until I see something tangible, all I've seen are "most likely", "I heard", "probably", and so forth. All of the commenters above know that torture "most likely" was worth it. I don't question their beliefs or their morality, but believing something doesn't make it so.
I know Dick Cheney assures me that he's got solid proof . . . but last I heard, he also had solid proof Saddam and Al-Q were working together, so maybe "solid proof" means something different to me than it does to him.
The Administration assured me that the Miami 7 were a deadly sleeper cell . . . until the facts came out and they turned out to be just a bunch of goofballs. They told me Padilla was going to blow up an apartment building with a gas leak. Then it was a dirty bomb. Then it was just going thru terrorist training camps:
"[Judge] Cooke sentenced Padilla to less than the minimum usually according in such cases 'because she was never fully convinced that the government had a strong case that directly linked Padilla to terror conspiracy as opposed to mere terror training,' CBS News legal chief analyst Andrew Cohen says."
http://cbs3.com/topstories/Jose.Padilla.conviction.2.635306.html
I know the CIA claims (indirectly) that they got essential, unique actionable intelligence that saved lives and stopped attacks over 5 years ago . . . but they won't say what it was (because maybe the terrorists haven't notices that their operatives have all disappeared years ago?), then they fed the videotapes into a shredder (remember the tapes? We ain't got no stinkin' tapes! Well, there might possibly be one. Two tops. Let me check and get back with y'all on that. Oh, looks like there were 93 tapes. Who knew? Oh, and we destroyed them all, that inarguable proof of how justified we were. Oops. Now you'll just have to take our word. What's that? You want us to give our word? Uhhh . . . no comment. But this friend of a friend of an acquaintence will tell you it's totally true. We're the CIA -- would we lie to you?).I've got witnesses saying torture, in these cases, got us nothing -- no thousands of lives saved. I've got alleged "proof" of terrorist plots thwarted that consistently don't pan out. I've got inaccurate claims again, and again, and again. As a citizen, what am I supposed to think?
"It is very easy to sit on the moral high horse here - the tremendous pressure under which these guys were operating to prevent further attacks post 9/11 is almost an afterthought."
No question. I'll never forget 9-11. But being afraid of another attack (I don't say that to demean their honor -- everybody was panicked) is not the same thing as "most likely saved thousands of lives"."I think we can all agree that the Bush Admn DID abuse this technique and use it more often than what we would like. This does lead us to a slippery slope, where we could very easily use these techniques as the very first option instead of using them as the last resort." (comment #18)
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 30.04.2009 @ 08:08
The law and society recognize this, as this issue is thousands of years old. How do you keep a people from sliding down that slippery slope? Accountability. If it needs to be done, then justify it. If you don't, then abuse is almost a given.
I have (in another life) represented many people charged with committing a crime in self defense (Southwestern Ohioans in my town loved to get drunk and fight). Some were truly justified, and some were just trying to avoid responsibility for doing something wrong. The ones that were in the right had no problem saying "this is what I did, and this is why I did it." The ones I really had to earn my pay for, consistently, did the same three things. They always avoided admitting they ever did what they were charged with, they would denigrate the "victim" to imply that they totally deserved it, and they would offer multiple reasons why what the were charged with (and supposedly didn't do) COULD have been justified in certain circumstances . . . without ever trying to establish that those circumstances actually applied.
This is a slippery slope -- one of the most dangerous. And it looks like we're already halfway down it. If there is a justifiable excuse, it needs to come out.
@Dan Smith:
". . . and intelligence gathered that likely stopped repeat 9/11 attacks which would have killed thousands."
Really? I'd feel alot better about torture if I knew it saved lives. Can I ask where you get your information?
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 29.04.2009 @ 12:02
@Jack:
"Waterboarding is very humane compared to almost any other method."
I'll concede that to be true. How does it change the nature of the situation?
Let me ask it this way: Lets assume I do something horrible to two people. The first I feed feet first into a woodchipper slowly up to the mid-thigh. I'm going to assume its a pretty painful experience, and after (assuming I magically keep him from bleeding out) he's got no legs. The second person I chop off their pinkies. Still pretty painful (again, an assumption), and they're down two digits.
Personally, I think the first guy got it worse. I would expect that the woodchipper hurt more, and losing two legs seems more crippling than losing two pinkies. Is chopping pinkies "better" than the woodchipper? I suppose so.
But does that make it acceptable?"To save thousands, or perhaps millions of American lives, it is fully justifiable."
I agree. So does the law. If circumstances require it, sometimes evil has to be done to avoid an even greater evil.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 29.04.2009 @ 00:55
But what if it doesn't save lives? Would you think it is still acceptable then?
I'm not being flippant (or at least I'm not trying to be flippant) -- to me, its the central issue in the issue.
If it turns out after all the information comes out that we didn't end any plots, didn't difuse any bombs, didn't get any essential benefit from waterboarding, would you support it then?
@manning:
in regards to points 1 and 2 -- is that based on any source?
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 28.04.2009 @ 16:07
@Gayle:
"the idea of murdering an infant in its mother’s womb because she finds her pregnancy inconvenient"
That's not moral relativism -- that's definitional relativism.
Is a pregnancy an innocent babe or a cellular growth? No doubt at 9 months you've got a human being, but at .00001 seconds before conception you have nothing. Somewhere between the two points "human" happens, and while everybody has an opinion and a faith as to when that moment is, beyond faith and opinion there's no answer.
"It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage. Those laws, generally proscribing abortion or its attempt at any time during pregnancy except when necessary to preserve the pregnant woman's life, are not of ancient or even of common-law origin. Instead, they derive from statutory changes effected, for the most part, in the latter half of the 19th century. . . .
It is thus apparent that at common law, at the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the major portion of the 19th century, abortion was viewed with less disfavor than under most American statutes currently in effect. Phrasing it another way, a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy than she does in most States today. At least with respect to the early stage of pregnancy, and very possibly without such a limitation, the opportunity to make this choice was present in this country well into the 19th century. Even later, the law continued for some time to treat less punitively an abortion procured in early pregnancy.. . .
The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words. . . . (examples of "person" used in the Constitution) . . . But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only postnatally. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application. . .
It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth. . .
Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."
Blackmun, J., Roe v. Wade
http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Roe/"Even today, when society's views on abortion are changing, the very existence of the debate is evidence that the "right" to an abortion is not so universally accepted as the appellant would have us believe."
Rehnquist, J., dissentingIf you frame the question the way you did, then of course everbody will answer "murdering innocent babies is bad". There are many commenters in these torture discussion threads that enthuiastically support waterboarding prisoners, but I bet if I asked them "do you support sadistically torturing innocents?" they would answer "no" (God, I hope they would answer "no). Does that mean they're opposed to the "enhanced interrogations"? Not necessarily -- they may disagree that its sadistic, that its torture, that the victims are innocents, or any combination of the three.
There are 3 essential aspects to faith and belief in regards to debate. They can't be proven, they can't be disproven, and they can't be used to "prove" anything. If I think animals have a soul (I don't), then killing animals to eat is a sin. Am I wrong? Until that Soul-Detector 3000 comes in the mail, not so that anyone can prove. Am I right? Same problem. Can I "prove" McDonalds is a sin factory? Not unless you accept without proof the underlying belief . . . at which point the question becomes moot.
p.s.: I don't disagree with your position and beliefs -- this issue is the most philosophically challenging one for me. Personally, I don't think a zygote is a person. If it was, does that make a woman who has sex and then doesn't take steps to insure the egg attaches to the uterine wall guilty of negligent homicide? But by not drawing a bright line at conception, I'm stuck with "rolling the dice" on the issue. If an abortion happens before the magic moment . . . nothing. If an abortion happens after the magic moment . . . 1st degree murder.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 28.04.2009 @ 16:04
Personally, I'm opposed to abortion for the same reason I'm opposed to the death penalty -- if the fundamental underlying "guesses" turn out to be wrong (the prisoner is innocent and the fetus is a human), you've committed the ultimate crime. I like to play poker, but the first and most valuble lesson I learned gambling from a very wise man was "never gamble with something you're not willing to lose". The "life begins at conception" position is the safest, and if the gamble is murder I can absolutely respect erring on the side of caution -- its the smart play.
IT'S SILLY TO BLAME A POROUS BORDER FOR SWINE FLU IN US
I've been busy, so my catching the news has been sporadic, and as a result I last saw this story at the "huh -- this is interesting" level, and then 24 hours later we were apparently at "National we're-all-going-to-die-horribly day" level. That'll teach me to turn off the InterTubes.
Simple question I just missed not following this closely: why is it "swine flu"? I mean, how is it connected to swine? Did it start as a livestock pathogen (like mad cow) that jumped the species divide into humans, or were the initial outbreaks tied to pig farmers? Feel free to flame for not knowing something that is probably in every news story about this, but I tried to get some info from MSM and had to give up after MSNBC practically had the Halloween movie theme music playing when I brought up the topic.p.s. -- hope you feel good, Mr. M. All the news media were going to handle this in a totally non-sensationalistic manner until you planted the idea of formenting mass hysteria in their minds with your last post.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 27.04.2009 @ 01:17
Bad critical thinker! Very very bad! As web persona, you should have learned the first lesson of communication 2.0 -- namely, never feed the trolls (or the brain dead zombies).
@Roxan:
"Common sense should have prevailed."
There's your problem right there.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 29.04.2009 @ 14:16
@ Mike reynolds"
"I’m guessing his bumper graphic will be, 'Mexapocalypse Now!'"
Golf claps all around -- you win.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 27.04.2009 @ 01:26
I can see a staffer reading this blog and facepalming themselves when they read that. "Dammit! Why didn't I think of that? All I had was 'The Brown Plague'!"
