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[Harmonium]

I mostly just feel uncomfortable.

Some of them are otherwise intelligent people, but you can't debate or even generally discuss Bush or his nitwit/dangerous decisions with them at all. I had a friend over once for dinner who told me in my kitchen that if it was between terrorists killing his children and us torturing a terrorist to stop it, he'd pick torture. I was going to say "Oh, come on!" and point out that life isn't really like an episode of 24, but instead I said "okay," and smiled in a let's-talk-about-something-else sort of way.

So are you saying that you would make a different choice, or that the scenario is so fantastically overblown that it doesn't deserve real consideration?

The latter, sort of. First, we are overreacting to the actual threat. That's not to say that terrorists aren't going to attack, but that we are overreacting to the level of threat and, through that overreaction, increasing the threat. Second, the benefits of torture, if in fact there are any, are drastically overshadowed by the negative consequences of torture (societal corrosion, negative world opinion, islamist vindication), especially in light of the poor quality and volume of intelligence it elicits.

I mentioned this story to illustrate one of the ways that people who are otherwise kind, easy-going, and intelligent get sucked into supporting Bush and his agenda: through his use of emotionally charged dichotomies - either we attack Iraq or they will attack us, either we give up our liberties and violate others' basic human rights or your child will be killed by a terrorist. He rules by fear - not of himself, but of a mysterious, overblown enemy he has helped to construct - and it has been depressingly effective up to this point. It also happens to be very Machiavellian, for any of you poli-sci majors who studied political philosophy.

That's all I have to say on the topic in this thread.

 

Does that mean you don't want responses? You bring up some interesting points...

[Geo_Storm]

when my friend told me that Austin was the liberal sanctuary of Texas, I didn't believe that such a thing existed. I stand corrected.

[Harmonium]

Does that mean you don't want responses? You bring up some interesting points...

It seemed like I was heading off on a terrible thread hijack, but it looks like everybody else is done commenting. Fire away, Harmonium! 

I first wanted to understand what you meant by "islamist vindication" as a negative consequence of torture.

I understand that Bush's rhetoric has created an exaggerated dichotamy, but I object to the idea that there is no such dichotamy in our world today. There is a fundamentally Western way of life, marked in the modern era by liberalism and capitalist marketplaces. And there are many people, growing in numbers, who fundamentally object to this way of life. The disturbing and complicated point is that there ARE problems with this way of life; it's a very easy case to make that the US and Europe have grown decadent in modernity. The West is also fundamentally secular. No matter how evangelical Bush's overblown speech may seem, or the percentage of Americans who claim Christ died for their sins, it doesn't change the West's secularism one iota.

It's a very real possibility that secularism and theocracy ARE mutually exclusive, that they do in fact imply a dichotamy, a "clash of civilizations" as Huntington has put it. And it frightens me that conviction will always be on the side of religion; no rational explication of liberalism will ever have the ground of deity, however misguided that ground may be.

This doesn't make the torture issue any easier, but to claim there is no dichotamy of any sort seems to me misguided.

[LawSchoolCutie]

Kick them in the the nuts or punch them in the boobies

[Astro]

It doesn't mean what you think it means.

It's more of an homage, really. 

I assumed it was Baboon Job you sick @#!*.

 

[Astro]

Well, he's used " " three times in this thread already.  My money says it's J. 

Jesus, dude.  You still haven't figured out whose troll that is?

[H4CS]

Well, he's used " " three times in this thread already.  My money says it's J. 

Jesus, dude.  You still haven't figured out whose troll that is?

You mean it's not you?

 

Horowitz hunh?  Someone's done his homework.

[Astro]

Well, he's used " " three times in this thread already.  My money says it's J. 

Jesus, dude.  You still haven't figured out whose troll that is?

You mean it's not you?

 

 

[->Soon]

Kick them in the the nuts or punch them in the boobies

rrrrroooooowwwwwwwwwwrrrrrrrr

this kitten has claws...

[H4CS]

Can you think of anyone more polar opposite of Feyerabend?

Well, maybe a few. 

What the hell?