Author Topic: 3DHS on Torture  (Read 23890 times)

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sirs

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3DHS on Torture
« on: October 23, 2007, 11:27:05 PM »
Tee appears to want to debate "torture", and even though it's been discussed adnauseum, I started a thread for those that may wish to chime in

Now, I'm guessing that certain terms need to be defined with some parameters, since its far too easy to lay claim that anyone that supports Bush or the war on terror, and the use of interrogation techniques, supposedly supports "torture".  So, before any discussion can be initiated, lets lay some groundwork

Head slapping is NOT torture, can we agree to that?  Made to listen to loud music and various means of sleep deprivation is NOT torture.  Can we agree to that?  Being made to wear panties on one's head is NOT torture, can we agree to that?

If we can't even agree to the above, I really see no reason to continue.  Can we all agree to that?
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Michael Tee

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2007, 11:36:17 PM »
<<Head slapping is NOT torture, can we agree to that?  Made to listen to loud music and various means of sleep deprivation is NOT torture.  Can we agree to that?  Being made to wear panties on one's head is NOT torture, can we agree to that?>>

How many head-slaps over what period of time?  How loud the music and for how long a time?  How long a period of sleep deprivation?  You really need to define your terms.  I can definitely see prolonged head slapping as torture.  Same with the music and sleep deprivation, if they stretch a guy to the limit of physical endurance.  We don't know that much about the effects of sleep deprivation, which is probably where the loud music is headed - - what happens to the guy's internal organs?  You don't know and I don't know.

Being made to wear panties on one's head is not torture.  Doesn't even belong in this discussion.  I believe you just put it in as a childish way of trivializing any objection to torture.

sirs

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2007, 11:40:30 PM »
<<Head slapping is NOT torture, can we agree to that?  Made to listen to loud music and various means of sleep deprivation is NOT torture.  Can we agree to that?  Being made to wear panties on one's head is NOT torture, can we agree to that?>>

How many head-slaps over what period of time?  How loud the music and for how long a time?  How long a period of sleep deprivation?  You really need to define your terms.  I can definitely see prolonged head slapping as torture.  Same with the music and sleep deprivation, if they stretch a guy to the limit of physical endurance. 

Well there ya go, no need to go any further, since watching endless rationalization efforts at trying to portray listening to loud music as torture could be construed as torture as well.  Gald we could nip this one in the bud, so soon
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Michael Tee

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2007, 11:48:55 PM »
What was nipped in the bud was another one of your thinly-disguised attempts to trivialize torture by painting it as something annoying but not damaging.  Interesting again to see the right-wing "mind" at work, unable to make any kind of distinctions between variations on a single concept:  loud music is loud music is loud music - - there is no difference at all between listening to it for an hour, for a day or for a year.   Just pick "loud music" and say if it's torture or not.  The limited cognitive capacity of the right-wing brain is at the same time fascinating and frightening.

yellow_crane

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #4 on: October 23, 2007, 11:51:39 PM »
Tee appears to want to debate "torture", and even though it's been discussed adnauseum, I started a thread for those that may wish to chime in

Now, I'm guessing that certain terms need to be defined with some parameters, since its far too easy to lay claim that anyone that supports Bush or the war on terror, and the use of interrogation techniques, supposedly supports "torture".  So, before any discussion can be initiated, lets lay some groundwork

Head slapping is NOT torture, can we agree to that?  Made to listen to loud music and various means of sleep deprivation is NOT torture.  Can we agree to that?  Being made to wear panties on one's head is NOT torture, can we agree to that?

If we can't even agree to the above, I really see no reason to continue.  Can we all agree to that?


On the panties thing, I agree that it is not torture.

More a wreath on the crown of the victorious.

sirs

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2007, 11:55:51 PM »
What was nipped in the bud was another one of your thinly-disguised attempts to trivialize torture by painting it as something annoying but not damaging. 

Not even close, since if it couldn't be understood that things like loud music isn't torture, there was no need to delve into the more serious issues of actual debatable acts of supposed "torture", such as waterboarding
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Plane

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2007, 12:46:28 AM »
In the near future tecniues that force the truth from the unwilling without pain at all are very likely to be developed .

There will be no resisting , the access to he brains functions are becomeig more direct.

In some ways I am more worried aout this than about the old fashioned torture.

Michael Tee

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2007, 01:00:27 AM »
<<Not even close, since if it couldn't be understood that things like loud music isn't torture . . . >>

But that's exactly the point.  First you make a phony claim that you just want an honest debate on what is torture and what isn't.
Then you announce that "loud music" isn't torture, and we should all agree with you on that  - - so that your "debate" starts off with us all happily agreeing with you on panties and loud music.
Then when someone points out to you the essential flaw in your logic - - your failure to define your terms - - you suddenly close up the debate, it's all over, "how can we debate if you peons don't agree with me, sirs, that loud music is not torture?"

You are acting not only irrationally, which for you is par for the course, but childishly as well.  "If you won't agree that the last pitch was right over the plate, I'm taking my ball and bat and going home right now."   OK.

yellow_crane

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2007, 01:03:27 AM »
What was nipped in the bud was another one of your thinly-disguised attempts to trivialize torture by painting it as something annoying but not damaging. 

Not even close, since if it couldn't be understood that things like loud music isn't torture, there was no need to delve into the more serious issues of actual debatable acts of supposed "torture", such as waterboarding


I think you also ought to consider the history of torture.

Sinners were/are tortured for their own good.

In mainstream christianity, a whole half of all karmic outcome there is is solid, round the clock torture, endured for all eternity.  (This last one often the result of fey whimsy).

So here is evidence that possibly the christians know of a deeper, more spiritual essense involved in its use.

It can be seen then that torture has scope.

When you spin the definition, you are already there, btw.

Outlawing torture in war seems the most presumptive of ironic absurdities.  The issue is war or no war, but not a societal blush and smelling salts regarding torture.  Torture in war is inevitable, I don't care who.  I would also add that it is monumentally absurd to believe you can snatch and patch behavior in war.  

In Vietnam, it was standard MI interrogative technique to load a chopper of about l6-20 "gooks" go up four hundred feet, and throw one out before you even started to ask questions.

Mostly, it worked.

When you argue about the level of torture in a war, you have had your elcted and assigned argument already reduced to a panicky negotiation, and while you arrive on this square, you have tacitly nodded to the war, and are now desparately demanding that the most ugly be spared.

I am for voting for who wants the war ended, and who does not;  those who do not should be spared, but the architects of this imperialistic attack on Iraq should have their fingers taped to a steering wheel, their fingers cut off one by one, and the stubs be cauterized with the cigarette lighter.



Universe Prince

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #9 on: October 24, 2007, 02:30:08 AM »

Head slapping is NOT torture, can we agree to that?  Made to listen to loud music and various means of sleep deprivation is NOT torture.  Can we agree to that?


How about physically beating someone? Is that torture?

How loud is the music about which you're asking? There is loud, and then there is causing physical pain loud.

How long does the sleep deprivation go on? Too long and it can not only cause genuine physical problems it can also cause death.

A few slaps to the head? No, that isn't torture. Repeated, hard physical blows to the head, yeah that just might be torture. Listening to music one doesn't like at a volume a bit louder than one prefers? No, that isn't torture. Listening to something for days that hits decibel levels that cause physical pain (about 120 decibels and up, I think) yeah, that might be torture. Being kept awake for a day or two? No, that probably isn't torture. Being forcibly kept awake for a week or more, if that isn't torture, that starts to get near torture. If you think it isn't, then you have some folks forcibly keep you from sleep for about 10 days and then tell me what you think about it.

Yeah, physical mutilation is torture, but there are other ways to cause severe physical and mental anguish. That those ways may not involve physical mutilation does not mean they're not torture. And if you cannot agree to that, Sirs, then yes, there is no reason to continue the conversation.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

Michael Tee

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #10 on: October 24, 2007, 02:41:47 AM »
I think sirs was genuinely prepared to debate waterboarding as torture but, as a precondition to the debate, wanted all participants to agree that loud music and head-slapping were not.  Probably because he himself was too stupid to see that "head-slapping" and "loud music" each came in more than one flavour.  He had the true conservative narrow-mindedness where nothing can exist in shades of gray.  There are no gradations of "head-slapping" - - all kinds of head-slapping are just "head-slapping."  In the real world, of course, there are infinite variations of head-slapping, but sirs doesn't want a debate in real-world terms; he exists in an abstract world, the world of right-wing fanaticism, where there are no grays.  When the failure to properly define his terms was pointed out to him, rather than acknowledge the problem (and his initial error) he chose to fly into a hissy fit and abort the entire discussion.  Childish and regrettable, but typically sirs, sirs all the way as we know him and love him.

It's OK sirs, I'm heading in for now, but anytime you want to debate waterboarding as torture, let me know.  Should be interesting.

sirs

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #11 on: October 24, 2007, 02:42:22 AM »
Head slapping is NOT torture, can we agree to that?  Made to listen to loud music and various means of sleep deprivation is NOT torture.  Can we agree to that?

How about physically beating someone? Is that torture?

When it is physically damaging someone, yes.


How loud is the music about which you're asking? There is loud, and then there is causing physical pain loud.

If it's causing damage to the ear drum, then it is obviously loud enough to be torture


How long does the sleep deprivation go on? Too long and it can not only cause genuine physical problems it can also cause death.

If physical problems/damage is caused, then its no longer simple sleep deprivation


Yeah, physical mutilation is torture, but there are other ways to cause severe physical and mental anguish.

I don't have a problem with "anguish", or anxiety, or emotional stress, or humiliation.  My line is when physical damage is occuring, as far as what becomes "torture".


"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Universe Prince

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #12 on: October 24, 2007, 03:27:37 AM »

I don't have a problem with "anguish",


Yes, I see that by the fact that you put the word in quotes. Anguish isn't merely feeling bad or sad or unhappy. Anguish is excruciating physical and/or mental distress, suffering or pain. Causing anguish repeatedly and deliberately is something many people would call torture. Maybe you don't have a problem with that, but that doesn't mean it isn't torture.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

sirs

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #13 on: October 24, 2007, 03:34:26 AM »
And I don't have a problem with "distress" either, as a means of interrogating terrorists.  I do have a problem with anything that would inflict physical damage onto the body.  Mental stress and duress, that might cause severe anxiety, that might cause cardiac irregularities, that might cause more serious problems, are far too many "mights", and isn't "torture"
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Plane

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Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #14 on: October 24, 2007, 03:53:19 AM »
It is a leagal question that doesn't benefit from ambiguity.


Could being subjected to endless pointless quibbling over details of the argument rather than the point in question , torturous parsing of common words and verbose justification for verbosity be consideredTorture?


No?


Too bad that , oh the times I have nearly cracked.


There ought to be a medically determined decibel level that is forbidden , but should there be a limit on the dissonance of the music?

How about silence ? should there be a limit on how long and severely a person can be isolated and deprived of stimulus?