Looking for place of reason & rational thinking... I hope this is it.

[Brant Gaede]

If you treat your prisoners with dignity they may not give you any info, but they won't spend the rest of their lives hating you and all you represent because you didn't.

All this crap in the Middle East is about oil and major powers' geo-politics. Dick C. et al. thought Iraqi oil would pay for the Iraqi War. Ha, ha.

If public education was any good students would understand the "Civil War." They would understand the Indian Wars. They would understand wars and they'd be mad as hell and wouldn't take it any more. But that's not the purpose of public education, which is very good indeed apropos its real purpose.

--Brant

where is all the critical thinking, long time passing?--where is all the critical thinking, a long time ago?--where is all the critical thinking, it didn't go to flowers everyone; it was never born

[Brant Gaede]

What the Founders seem to have tried to have done was replicate the British government without the errors of such. The President is our King. The modern problem is the bread and circuses are getting too expensive and the Eloi are getting restless and the thugs are going mad.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

where is all the critical thinking...

Brant,

I believe it is actually growing because of the Internet and electronic communications.

But you won't find it among people who look at facts only through the framework of their predigested rigid prejudices.

(For prejudice, think of the distortion mirrors in a funny-house. People see reflections of real stuff, i.e., facts. But those reflections are warped.)

The good news is that there is room for everyone on the web--including those who prefer critical thinking for real. And I believe this number is growing.

Michael

[jriggenbach]

where is all the critical thinking...

Brant,

I believe it is actually growing because of the Internet and electronic communications.

But you won't find it among people who look at facts only through the framework of their predigested rigid prejudices.

(For prejudice, think of the distortion mirrors in a funny-house. People see reflections of real stuff, i.e., facts. But those reflections are warped.)

The good news is that there is room for everyone on the web--including those who prefer critical thinking for real. And I believe this number is growing.

Michael

Yes, Brant, you won't find it among people who look at facts only through the framework of their predigested rigid prejudices. You'll find it, if you find it at all, among people who look at facts only through the framework of Michael's predigested rigid prejudices. You know - like the one in which everyone either loves Glenn Beck passionately or hates him virulently? So that anyone who, for example, questions whether Beck really knows as much as he thinks he does, anyone who suspects that, ten years from now, you'll be able to mention his name in public and people will say, "Glenn who?" - anyone who is, shall we say, less than starry-eyed about the redoubtable Glenn - is a "Beck hater."

Helpfully,

JR

[Brant Gaede]

Today young men and women enlist in United States armed forces to get away from home and money and to kill people and to fight for freedom. The last is the necessary delusion for moral qualmaltry. Why don't they know they've been set up? Public education sluiced them right down into uniform as it has always done.

--Brant

[Reidy]

This would seem to predict that joining the military and going out for combat roles will correlate positively with years in school. My impression is that they don't.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Yes, Brant, you won't find it among people who look at facts only through the framework of their predigested rigid prejudices. You'll find it, if you find it at all, among people who look at facts only through the framework of Michael's predigested rigid prejudices. You know - like the one in which everyone either loves Glenn Beck passionately or hates him virulently? So that anyone who, for example, questions whether Beck really knows as much as he thinks he does, anyone who suspects that, ten years from now, you'll be able to mention his name in public and people will say, "Glenn who?" - anyone who is, shall we say, less than starry-eyed about the redoubtable Glenn - is a "Beck hater."

This is actually a good example of filtering stuff through a predigested rigid prejudice.

Since Jeff's thing is history, I'll do history here as an example of what really goes on in my head--as opposed to his conjectures.

I prefer my historical facts verified according to the following criteria.

1. Original sources and original documents.

2. When no original sources are available, accounts from different eye-witnesses--ones with reputations for reasonable accuracy--who did not know each other and could not have colluded. Two at the very minimum, but the more the better.

3. I never (knowingly) dismiss or omit a verified fact just because it is inconvenient or doesn't fit a theory, but my BS antenna wiggles when I see others doing it.

4. I try to always qualify conjecture as such, and once again, my BS antenna wiggles when I see others doing differently.

I realize that these standards are not looked upon with much favor in some quarters--at least not in practice--but they are the ones I use for both lip service and practice. It's probably my limited intelligence, but I simply can't find anything wrong with them in terms of objectivity.

As to Beck, the one thing I have found that most identifies his critics (and this goes for many, many critics I have looked at) is that they are not familiar with his stuff first-hand. They always base their opinions on the opinions of others and sound-bites taken from mainstream sources (usually out-of-context ones at that).

I begin to wonder if that is the way they interpret history, too.

Ya' gotta' wonder when folks are sloppy like that...

(btw - I'm always amused when one person in a gang or other starts actually looking at Beck's stuff, speaks up and says, "Hey, this ain't what folks are saying," and gets trashed by his gang--the members of which almost always say you don't actually need to look at his stuff to know it's screwed up. This happens over and over. I can provide links if necessary. One of the most famous recently was a black football player, Chad Ochocinco, who got royally trashed on his Twitter account for saying that, with that same reaction. It's sort of like Pavlov...)

Historically, I try to be more precise and objective in what little history I manage to look at. But then, that's me. I don't expect everybody to adhere to the kinds of standards I mentioned above. Otherwise, they wouldn't have predigested rigid prejudices, now would they?

Then, what would I be able to complain about?

Objectively, or at least tentatively objectively,

Michael

[Dennis Hardin]

Rand was a huge fan of strong fictional characters who demonstrated moral courage in the defense of innocent victims and in the pursuit of justice for thugs. My guess is that she felt torture was a necessary evil in certain situations where no other option was available. But using torture when absolutely necessary to protect innocent life does require a certain level of courage that most people do not have.

Bauer did have it. That is why she would have admired Jack Bauer.

And, or course, governments can certainly be trusted to decide when torture is necessary to protect innocent life, just as they can be trusted to do all of the other wonderful things that they do to us every day. Governments would never abuse this power. They would never torture innocent prisoners under the mistaken impression that they had valuable information, or just for the sheer fun of it. Governments would never abuse this hideous power, because they are so honorable. Only the highest calibre of human being would ever apply for the job of government interrogator, never some sadistic bastard who got his jollies doing this kind of work. All of the prisoners tortured at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and Bagram, as well as all of the black op sites where prisoners were renditioned to be tortured, were obviously guilty, because otherwise, why would the government have tortured them? Governments never make these kinds of mistakes. This country's founders, who got the fourth amendment to the constitution passed, were just a bunch of pussies. Right?

No one claims that the U.S. government can be trusted, and this kind of silly oversimplification undermines your case, weak as it is. The fact is that, so far at least, the government has managed to prevent a recurrence of 9/11. So apparently they are doing something right.

The Fourth Amendment was intended to prevent practices such as the issuance of "general warrants" that allowed the English crown's agents to search anywhere they wanted and seize the property of the American colonists as they pleased. The founders recognized that there would be crisis situations when government agents had to act aggressively to protect innocent citizens from criminals, which is why they explicitly prohibited "unreasonable" searches and seizures and allowed for exceptions when there is "probable cause."

By the way, it has long been known that torture does not even achieve its alleged benefits. Prisoners will say anything to get the torture to stop, whether it is true or not. Civilized forms of interrogation have been shown to produce far better results. And the ticking time bomb scenarios that have been used to justify torture are absurd on their face, involving ridiculous hypothetical situations that would never occur in real life.

Martin

Politically correct, touchy-feely, crypto-pacifist, happy horsecrap. Like it or not, torture clearly does work. And, fortunately for you and other innocent citizens, many very real ticking time bombs have so far been defused—thanks in part to the use of the techniques you think are so unspeakable.

John Yoo, a former justice department official in the Bush White House, argued that “enhanced interrogation techniques” led to the discovery of bin Laden’s whereabouts in Pakistan and his subsequent death at the hands of Navy Seals. "Without the tough decisions taken by President Bush and his national security team, the United States could not have found and killed Bin Laden," he said. The little nebbishes in the Obama White House fervently deny this, of course.

Read The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Algeria 1955-1957. The author, General Paul Aussaresses, was a career French army intelligence officer with an excellent military record during World War II. Although France ultimately lost Algeria, Aussaressess succeeded in eradicating a network of terrorists in 1957 using torture techniques. I would not defend the extent of the torture he used, but he definitely did show that it was effective. Aussaresses has advocated using such techniques against Al Quaeda.

Some commentary on this issue by Charles Krauthammer:

The Use of Torture and What Nancy Pelosi Knew

Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent's life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy. Even John McCain, the most admirable and estimable torture opponent, says openly that in such circumstances, "You do what you have to do." And then take the responsibility.

Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting them from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you don't entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation. It is similarly imprudent to have a person who would abjure torture in all circumstances making national security decisions upon which depends the protection of 300 million countrymen.

The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. This case lacks the black-and-white clarity of the ticking time bomb scenario. We know less about the length of the fuse or the nature of the next attack. But we do know the danger is great. . .

Under those circumstances, you do what you have to do. And that includes waterboarding. (To call some of the other "enhanced interrogation" techniques -- face slap, sleep interruption, a caterpillar in a small space -- torture is to empty the word of any meaning.)

Did it work? The current evidence is fairly compelling. George Tenet said that the "enhanced interrogation" program alone yielded more information than everything gotten from "the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together."

Michael Hayden, CIA director after waterboarding had been discontinued, writes (with former attorney general Michael Mukasey) that "as late as 2006 . . . fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al-Qaeda came from those interrogations." Even Dennis Blair, Obama's director of national intelligence, concurs that these interrogations yielded "high value information." So much for the lazy, mindless assertion that torture never works.

But how do we know that we could not have obtained the information by other means?

Krauthammer:

There are two problems with the "good cop" technique. KSM, the mastermind of 9/11 who knew more about more plots than anyone else, did not seem very inclined to respond to polite inquiries about future plans. The man who boasted of personally beheading Daniel Pearl with a butcher knife answered questions about plots with "soon you will know" -- meaning, when you count the bodies in the morgue and find horribly disfigured burn victims in hospitals, you will know then what we are planning now.

The other problem is one of timing. The good cop routine can take weeks or months or years. We didn't have that luxury in the aftermath of 9/11. . .

"We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened," asserts Blair's predecessor, Mike McConnell.

Perhaps it’s a weakness on my part, but I can’t help adding Krauthammer’s comments about someone who claimed he got his opinions from watching Jack Bauer. In a subsequent column, he described the responses to his previous article sanctioning torture as “spirited.” He then added another descriptive for one particular critic:

The Torture Debate, Continued

And occasionally stupid. Dan Froomkin, writing for washingtonpost.com and echoing a common meme among my critics, asserted that "the ticking time bomb scenario only exists in two places: On TV and in the dark fantasies of power-crazed and morally deficient authoritarians." (He later helpfully suggested that my moral deficiencies derived from "watching TV and fantasizing about being Jack Bauer.")

On Oct. 9, 1994, Israeli Cpl. Nachshon Waxman was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. The Israelis captured the driver of the car. He was interrogated with methods so brutal that they violated Israel's existing 1987 interrogation guidelines, which themselves were revoked in 1999 by the Israeli Supreme Court as unconscionably harsh. The Israeli prime minister who ordered this enhanced interrogation (as we now say) explained without apology: "If we'd been so careful to follow the [1987] Landau Commission [guidelines], we would never have found out where Waxman was being held."

Who was that prime minister? Yitzhak Rabin, Nobel Peace laureate. . .

That moral calculus is important. Even John McCain says that in ticking time bomb scenarios you "do what you have to do." The no-torture principle is not inviolable. One therefore has to think about what kind of transgressive interrogation might be permissible in the less pristine circumstance of the high-value terrorist who knows about less imminent attacks. (By the way, I've never seen five seconds of "24.")

Here is Micahel Hayden, former CIA Director, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror

The point of interrogation is intelligence, not confession.

By MICHAEL HAYDEN and MICHAEL B. MUKASEY

The Obama administration has declassified and released opinions of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) given in 2005 and earlier that analyze the legality of interrogation techniques authorized for use by the CIA. . .

Proponents of the release have argued that the techniques have been abandoned and thus there is no point in keeping them secret any longer; that they were in any event ineffective; that their disclosure was somehow legally compelled; and that they cost us more in the coin of world opinion than they were worth. None of these claims survives scrutiny.

Disclosure of the techniques is likely to be met by faux outrage, and is perfectly packaged for media consumption. It will also incur the utter contempt of our enemies. Somehow, it seems unlikely that the people who beheaded Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl, and have tortured and slain other American captives, are likely to be shamed into giving up violence by the news that the U.S. will no longer interrupt the sleep cycle of captured terrorists even to help elicit intelligence that could save the lives of its citizens.

Which brings us to the next of the justifications for disclosing and thus abandoning these measures: that they don't work anyway, and that those who are subjected to them will simply make up information in order to end their ordeal. This ignorant view of how interrogations are conducted is belied by both experience and common sense.. [Confessions] aren't the point. Intelligence is. . Moreover, intelligence can be verified, correlated and used to get information from other detainees, and has been; none of this information is used in isolation.

The terrorist Abu Zubaydah (sometimes derided as a low-level operative of questionable reliability, but who was in fact close to KSM and other senior al Qaeda leaders) disclosed some information voluntarily. But he was coerced into disclosing information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh, another of the planners of Sept. 11, who in turn disclosed information which -- when combined with what was learned from Abu Zubaydah -- helped lead to the capture of KSM and other senior terrorists, and the disruption of follow-on plots aimed at both Europe and the U.S. Details of these successes, and the methods used to obtain them, were disclosed repeatedly in more than 30 congressional briefings and hearings beginning in 2002, and open to all members of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses of Congress beginning in September 2006. Any protestation of ignorance of those details, particularly by members of those committees, is pretense.

. . .As already disclosed by Director Hayden, as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those interrogations.

“Stupid.” “Lazy.” “Mindless.” Charlie really has a way with words.

Jack Bauer had the moral courage to "do what he had to do."

[Dennis Hardin]

I followed up on Mark's links, and, on the strength of them, I find ARI Watch bitchy and trivial.

I agree completely. It's mostly a lot of quasi-pacifist claptrap. Spinning Ayn Rand's words to make her viewpoint fit theirs.

I suspect Ayn Rand would have been a huge fan of Jack Bauer.

Absolutely! Rand was a huge fan of torture. That's why the leading hero of Atlas Shrugged was Dr. Floyd Ferris and his brilliant invention, the Ferris Persuader. John Galt and his band of terrorists were attempting to destroy the society around them and, especially, the U.S. government. Ferris swept in there just like a Jack Bauer hero to stop this nefarious plot and protect society against the evil Galt inspired terrorists. Unfortunately, Rand had a malevolent sense of life, so the evil terrorists won in the end.

Martin

Rand was a huge fan of strong fictional characters who demonstrated moral courage in the defense of innocent victims and in the pursuit of justice for thugs. My guess is that she felt torture was a necessary evil in certain situations where no other option was available. But using torture when absolutely necessary to protect innocent life does require a certain level of courage that most people do not have.

Bauer did have it. That is why she would have admired Jack Bauer.

Shudder.

--Brant

never saw an episode, nor did she

You have to sit back and admire the critical thinking that goes into a comment like that.

[Dennis Hardin]

where is all the critical thinking...

Brant,

I believe it is actually growing because of the Internet and electronic communications.

But you won't find it among people who look at facts only through the framework of their predigested rigid prejudices.

(For prejudice, think of the distortion mirrors in a funny-house. People see reflections of real stuff, i.e., facts. But those reflections are warped.)

The good news is that there is room for everyone on the web--including those who prefer critical thinking for real. And I believe this number is growing.

Michael

Michael,

I'm not sure if you were endorsing Brant's obvious contempt for my views on torture. That seems to be the implication. Do you really think that those of us who reject simplistic, politically correct viewpoints that are obviously based on feelings rather than fact are being "uncritical"?

BTW, I'm not a huge fan of Beck, but I have found a number of his books quite valuable. I have recently been reading "The Original Argument," in which he and a collaborator demonstrate the relevance of the Federalist Papers to many of the political issues facing us today. He previously did much the same thing with Paine's "Common Sense." Anyone who suggests that Beck does not bring a strong appreciation of history to his views is pathetically ignorant. And foolishly exposing himself as someone with "predigested rigid prejudices."

[Brant Gaede]

I followed up on Mark's links, and, on the strength of them, I find ARI Watch bitchy and trivial.

I agree completely. It's mostly a lot of quasi-pacifist claptrap. Spinning Ayn Rand's words to make her viewpoint fit theirs.

I suspect Ayn Rand would have been a huge fan of Jack Bauer.

Absolutely! Rand was a huge fan of torture. That's why the leading hero of Atlas Shrugged was Dr. Floyd Ferris and his brilliant invention, the Ferris Persuader. John Galt and his band of terrorists were attempting to destroy the society around them and, especially, the U.S. government. Ferris swept in there just like a Jack Bauer hero to stop this nefarious plot and protect society against the evil Galt inspired terrorists. Unfortunately, Rand had a malevolent sense of life, so the evil terrorists won in the end.

Martin

Rand was a huge fan of strong fictional characters who demonstrated moral courage in the defense of innocent victims and in the pursuit of justice for thugs. My guess is that she felt torture was a necessary evil in certain situations where no other option was available. But using torture when absolutely necessary to protect innocent life does require a certain level of courage that most people do not have.

Bauer did have it. That is why she would have admired Jack Bauer.

Shudder.

--Brant

never saw an episode, nor did she

You have to sit back and admire the critical thinking that goes into a comment like that.

I think I saw a part of one episode in which he kills somebody at the end, someone who is all tied up. It might have been another show all together, another show I haven't been watching too. I heard snippets about torture in Vietnam from the intelligence non-commissioned officers, usually as practiced by the South Vietnamese. It was rather mild stuff compared to things I've read. There was a famous case in 1969 in which the bird colonel commander of the Fifth SF Group in Vietnam lied to General Abrams about a certain case that resulted in a Vietnamese double agent either being rolled out of a helicopter into Nha Trang Bay or taken out in a boat and dumped. Abrams wanted a murder trial, but the CIA refused to cooperate and the Nixon White House shut the whole thing down. Up to that time SF in Vietnam had two masters, regular military as represented by Abrams and the CIA. After that, the CIA seems to have faded its involvement with SF. Anyway, I'd guess I know a lot more about this subject than you do. Could be wrong. I haven't even touched on the necessary mind set of the professional torturer. I'm the guy who'd need courage to torture someone, not him. If Jack Bauer's torturing is an expression of heroism needing great courage, he's an amateur. He'd be a self-torturing torturer, not someone who could go home to his wife and kids and love them as if he'd come home from working in the bank writing up loans.

--Brant

[jriggenbach]

I followed up on Mark's links, and, on the strength of them, I find ARI Watch bitchy and trivial.

I agree completely. It's mostly a lot of quasi-pacifist claptrap. Spinning Ayn Rand's words to make her viewpoint fit theirs.

I suspect Ayn Rand would have been a huge fan of Jack Bauer.

Absolutely! Rand was a huge fan of torture. That's why the leading hero of Atlas Shrugged was Dr. Floyd Ferris and his brilliant invention, the Ferris Persuader. John Galt and his band of terrorists were attempting to destroy the society around them and, especially, the U.S. government. Ferris swept in there just like a Jack Bauer hero to stop this nefarious plot and protect society against the evil Galt inspired terrorists. Unfortunately, Rand had a malevolent sense of life, so the evil terrorists won in the end.

Martin

Rand was a huge fan of strong fictional characters who demonstrated moral courage in the defense of innocent victims and in the pursuit of justice for thugs. My guess is that she felt torture was a necessary evil in certain situations where no other option was available. But using torture when absolutely necessary to protect innocent life does require a certain level of courage that most people do not have.

Bauer did have it. That is why she would have admired Jack Bauer.

Shudder.

--Brant

never saw an episode, nor did she

You have to sit back and admire the critical thinking that goes into a comment like that.

I think I saw a part of one episode in which he kills somebody at the end, someone who is all tied up. It might have been another show all together, another show I haven't been watching too. I heard snippets about torture in Vietnam from the intelligence non-commissioned officers, usually as practiced by the South Vietnamese. It was rather mild stuff compared to things I've read. There was a famous case in 1969 in which the bird colonel commander of the Fifth SF Group in Vietnam lied to General Abrams about a certain case that resulted in a Vietnamese double agent either being rolled out of a helicopter into Nha Trang Bay or taken out in a boat and dumped. Abrams wanted a murder trial, but the CIA refused to cooperate and the Nixon White House shut the whole thing down. Up to that time SF in Vietnam had two masters, regular military as represented by Abrams and the CIA. After that, the CIA seems to have faded its involvement with SF. Anyway, I'd guess I know a lot more about this subject than you [Dennis Hardin] do.

Of course you do, Brant. (On the other hand, how could you know less?)

JR

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm not sure if you were endorsing Brant's obvious contempt for my views on torture. That seems to be the implication.

Dennis,

Sorry for the implication. That was not my intention. I just picked up on the critical thinking thing and ran with it.

As for the torture thing, I have mentioned many times that there are cases where morality goes right out the window. In those instances, the person choosing between awful and rotten has to make the call the best he can. That goes for torture.

I can't think of a single moral justification for torture, so I hold it should never be a formal policy. But I can't think of any reason to morally condemn a person who tortures a bad guy to save his loved ones when the bad guy has put his loved ones in mortal danger. He just does what he thinks will preserve his values at the time.

When morality goes out the window like that, I never see a one-size-fits-all answer. I've said that often and I haven't changed.

btw - NB had an interesting article somewhere recently where he discussed the difference between a goal and a standard. I believe that kind of thinking is applicable here. You should never make a principle your goal. A principle is a standard you use to measure your actions and goals. Your goals are projections (abstractions) of potential concretes, not abstractions of abstractions.

I think blind contextless adherence to any principle (i.e., treating it as a goal instead of a measure) negates the use of a person's own eyes and brain in carrying out the business of survival.

Anyone who suggests that Beck does not bring a strong appreciation of history to his views is pathetically ignorant. And foolishly exposing himself as someone with "predigested rigid prejudices."

Amen to that (by which I understand to mean as "pathetically ignorant of Beck's work").

Beck also does something I find really rare in almost every public political discussion area I have read or viewed. He corrects himself--and publicly says so--when he learns he was wrong. And he does this without it affecting his self-confidence or keenness in trying to correctly understand what's happening. Someone should make a video of the times he has done this. It would be an eye-opener to a lot of people.

Also, I can't think of one Beck critic who has his track record in correctly predicting large scale social events, both good and bad. And being blasted for it--with the folks who blasted the hardest later touting themselves as experts on the result they didn't believe in before. Beck has been doing that ever since the Bush years--not to mention his more recent exposés of ACORN, Van Jones, George Soros, the Arab Spring, etc.

It goes like this:

1. Beck says something is coming for such and such reasons. Granted, that something is usually bad.
2. People say he's crazy, conspiracy kook, danger to society, promoter of violence and hatred, etc. etc. etc.
3. The bad thing actually happens as he said.
4. But Beck's own events are always peaceful--never a single arrest or anything like that.
5. The former critics start talking about the bad thing as if Beck had never mentioned it, but they shut up about him for a bit.
6. After a small amount of time, they slowly start back blasting him and the people who say they like him (usually calling them ignorant yahoos, just as crazy as Beck, etc.).

Then Beck says something else bad is coming.

And off it goes all over again--just like clockwork.

How many times does this have to happen before these knuckleheads start seeing a pattern? I mean, after the first dozen or so times, you would have thought the knuckleheads would see how ridiculous they make themselves in the minds of people who do see the pattern.

It's almost a comedy routine to watch these days. And as predictable as Pavlov's dogs salivating with the bell.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I followed up on Mark's links, and, on the strength of them, I find ARI Watch bitchy and trivial.

I agree completely. It's mostly a lot of quasi-pacifist claptrap. Spinning Ayn Rand's words to make her viewpoint fit theirs.

I suspect Ayn Rand would have been a huge fan of Jack Bauer.

Absolutely! Rand was a huge fan of torture. That's why the leading hero of Atlas Shrugged was Dr. Floyd Ferris and his brilliant invention, the Ferris Persuader. John Galt and his band of terrorists were attempting to destroy the society around them and, especially, the U.S. government. Ferris swept in there just like a Jack Bauer hero to stop this nefarious plot and protect society against the evil Galt inspired terrorists. Unfortunately, Rand had a malevolent sense of life, so the evil terrorists won in the end.

Martin

Rand was a huge fan of strong fictional characters who demonstrated moral courage in the defense of innocent victims and in the pursuit of justice for thugs. My guess is that she felt torture was a necessary evil in certain situations where no other option was available. But using torture when absolutely necessary to protect innocent life does require a certain level of courage that most people do not have.

Bauer did have it. That is why she would have admired Jack Bauer.

Shudder.

--Brant

never saw an episode, nor did she

You have to sit back and admire the critical thinking that goes into a comment like that.

I think I saw a part of one episode in which he kills somebody at the end, someone who is all tied up. It might have been another show all together, another show I haven't been watching too. I heard snippets about torture in Vietnam from the intelligence non-commissioned officers, usually as practiced by the South Vietnamese. It was rather mild stuff compared to things I've read. There was a famous case in 1969 in which the bird colonel commander of the Fifth SF Group in Vietnam lied to General Abrams about a certain case that resulted in a Vietnamese double agent either being rolled out of a helicopter into Nha Trang Bay or taken out in a boat and dumped. Abrams wanted a murder trial, but the CIA refused to cooperate and the Nixon White House shut the whole thing down. Up to that time SF in Vietnam had two masters, regular military as represented by Abrams and the CIA. After that, the CIA seems to have faded its involvement with SF. Anyway, I'd guess I know a lot more about this subject than you [Dennis Hardin] do.

Of course you do, Brant. (On the other hand, how could you know less?)

JR

My vanity prevented me from first understanding just how mild your compliment was.

Anyway, there is an interesting adjunct to this killing (murdering?) the Vietnamese double agent. For a year (1966-67) I was stationed in Moc Hoa, a backwarder province capital just south of the Parrot's Beak in the Mekong Delta. An American operative arrived there a year or so after I had left and returned to civilian life. I believe he was an American Special Forces soldier. He was in charge of this Vietnamese so far referred to as such. This Vietnamese fed him false intelligence about North Vietnamese in Cambodia. Subsequently American B-52s dropped scores and scores of 500 pound bombs covertly on empty Cambodian targets--at least empty of North Vietnamese. Upon understanding all this, Special Forces had a problem: what to do with this guy who was working for the other side? Torture him for information and then kill him or just kill him? He was killed. I don't know if he was tortured. The body was never found. (Nixon's Cambodian ground incursion came a year later in 1970. I think that was the year of the Kent State [National Guard] massacre.) Nixon, through his executive operatives, told the CIA not to cooperate in the prosecution of Colonel Rheault. The colonel then retired as he had no military future.

Now, compared to the destruction and death of actual combat, all this torture stuff is small stuff, except, it don't look good. It reflects badly pr-wise on the USA. If the USA stands for torture, then maybe it should stand down from its moralistic hubris and simply be what it has always been: geo-politically real. This might reduce slightly the stupid things it likes to do abroad.

--Brant

Edited August 28, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[Martin Radwin]

Rand was a huge fan of strong fictional characters who demonstrated moral courage in the defense of innocent victims and in the pursuit of justice for thugs. My guess is that she felt torture was a necessary evil in certain situations where no other option was available. But using torture when absolutely necessary to protect innocent life does require a certain level of courage that most people do not have.

Bauer did have it. That is why she would have admired Jack Bauer.

And, or course, governments can certainly be trusted to decide when torture is necessary to protect innocent life, just as they can be trusted to do all of the other wonderful things that they do to us every day. Governments would never abuse this power. They would never torture innocent prisoners under the mistaken impression that they had valuable information, or just for the sheer fun of it. Governments would never abuse this hideous power, because they are so honorable. Only the highest calibre of human being would ever apply for the job of government interrogator, never some sadistic bastard who got his jollies doing this kind of work. All of the prisoners tortured at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and Bagram, as well as all of the black op sites where prisoners were renditioned to be tortured, were obviously guilty, because otherwise, why would the government have tortured them? Governments never make these kinds of mistakes. This country's founders, who got the fourth amendment to the constitution passed, were just a bunch of pussies. Right?

No one claims that the U.S. government can be trusted, and this kind of silly oversimplification undermines your case, weak as it is. The fact is that, so far at least, the government has managed to prevent a recurrence of 9/11. So apparently they are doing something right.

You have argued that torture when used against proper targets is a good thing and a demonstration of moral courage. Since this torture of which you so enthusiastically approve is to be carried out by the U.S. government, the fact that the U.S. government cannot be trusted with such a power is highly relevant to the issue of approving of torture as an acceptable government policy, for it is the government that will be carrying it out. A cursory glance at the actual use of torture by the U.S. government demonstrates not only the barbarity but the utter uselessness of torture as an instrument to accomplish anything but barbarity as an end in itself. From the torture administered at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram, and the CIA's renditioning of prisoners to be tortured at various sites around the world, just how much useful intelligence has been achieved and at what cost? Prisoners at Guantanamo were obtained by offering bounties to Afghan warlords, and these prisoners, almost all of whom were innocent of anything, included children as young as twelve. These are despicable crimes committed by our government against innocent people, which you pathetically attempt to justify, using the moral calculus of collective punishment. How many innocent people is it okay for our government to torture, under your theory that some useful intelligence might be obtained from one or two of them?

Regarding your statement that "so far at least, the government has managed to prevent a recurrence of 9/11", perhaps you need to take a refresher course in basic logic. All we know is that there has been no recurrence of a 9/11 type attack. This does not in any way imply that the government prevented it. We have not been attacked by the Martians either; this doesn't mean that the government has protected us against a Martian attack. Granting the government credit for this is especially bizarre in view of the fact that it was gross incompetence on the part of the U.S. government that made the 9/11 attack possible in the first place, there being evidence of suspicious individuals taking flight training courses without being concerned about learning to land the airplane and these individuals not being investigated.

The Fourth Amendment was intended to prevent practices such as the issuance of "general warrants" that allowed the English crown's agents to search anywhere they wanted and seize the property of the American colonists as they pleased. The founders recognized that there would be crisis situations when government agents had to act aggressively to protect innocent citizens from criminals, which is why they explicitly prohibited "unreasonable" searches and seizures and allowed for exceptions when there is "probable cause."

My mistake. I meant the Eighth Amendment, with its forbidding of cruel and unusual punishments. I think torture pretty clearly qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment. Exceptions were not made in the amendment for persons thought to possess intelligence useful to the government. In this respect, the founders were very wise.

By the way, it has long been known that torture does not even achieve its alleged benefits. Prisoners will say anything to get the torture to stop, whether it is true or not. Civilized forms of interrogation have been shown to produce far better results. And the ticking time bomb scenarios that have been used to justify torture are absurd on their face, involving ridiculous hypothetical situations that would never occur in real life.

Martin

Politically correct, touchy-feely, crypto-pacifist, happy horsecrap. Like it or not, torture clearly does work. And, fortunately for you and other innocent citizens, many very real ticking time bombs have so far been defused—thanks in part to the use of the techniques you think are so unspeakable.

Politically correct? I had no idea that the founders who wrote the eighth amendment were guilty of political correctness. No, being against torture is not a matter of political correctness or crypto-pacifism. It is a matter of being a civilized human being. It is an ethical stand taken against the cruelest, most despicable barbarism, invariably used against innocent people. The ticking time bomb scenarios are bullshit and have been shown to be bullshit, with standard interrogation techniques being at least as effective. Just look at the thousands of people around the world tortured, by the U.S. and other governments. Just how many of these torture victims were guilty of anything and were in ticking time bomb scenarios? Just look at all the prisoners in U.S. jails who have been tortured, subjected to prisoner rape and other forms of barbarous punishment. How many of these prisoners were in ticking time bomb scenarios? This torture is done, not because it accomplishes anything of value, but as an end in itself, to satisfy the sadistic cravings of the torturers. That's the reality of the actual world of torture, not the bullshit euphemisms and rationalizations spewed by those who are looking for any excuse to justify it.

John Yoo, a former justice department official in the Bush White House, argued that “enhanced interrogation techniques” led to the discovery of bin Laden’s whereabouts in Pakistan and his subsequent death at the hands of Navy Seals. "Without the tough decisions taken by President Bush and his national security team, the United States could not have found and killed Bin Laden," he said. The little nebbishes in the Obama White House fervently deny this, of course.

John Yoo, along with the rest of the pack of Bush appointed lackeys, are a bunch of fucking liars. They have lied about everything, including lying us into the murderous Iraq war. And we should believe anything this jerk has to say? What else can he be expected to say, given that he was one of the first Bush proponents of torture? Of course he's going to attempt to justify torture in any way he can, including lying through his teeth about its alleged benefits. But suppose, for the sake of argument, that this particular allegation is true. Suppose the use of torture actually did lead to the government learning about the whereabouts of Bin Laden. How many innocent people is it okay for our government to torture in order to extract one such piece of information?

Read The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Algeria 1955-1957. The author, General Paul Aussaresses, was a career French army intelligence officer with an excellent military record during World War II. Although France ultimately lost Algeria, Aussaressess succeeded in eradicating a network of terrorists in 1957 using torture techniques. I would not defend the extent of the torture he used, but he definitely did show that it was effective. Aussaresses has advocated using such techniques against Al Quaeda.

You would use this as an example of the effective use of torture. Never mind that the French were an imperialist, colonialist power that had absolutely no business being in Algeria in the first place, and that their treatment of the Algerians was one of the great crimes against humanity committed in our long and bloody history, just as the U.S. has no business bombing, invading, and occupying Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya.

In your moral calculus, bombing, invading, and occupying countries in non-defensive wars, killing boatloads of innocent people, and torturing lots of others in order to defend the occupation, are morally praiseworthy activities. Many other self-described objectivists feel exactly the same way. For this reason, I am truly thankful that, in response to Phil's query, what passes for modern day objectivism is not a growing movement in our culture.

Martin

[jriggenbach]

I'm not sure if you were endorsing Brant's obvious contempt for my views on torture. That seems to be the implication.

Dennis,

Sorry for the implication. That was not my intention. I just picked up on the critical thinking thing and ran with it.

As for the torture thing, I have mentioned many times that there are cases where morality goes right out the window. In those instances, the person choosing between awful and rotten has to make the call the best he can. That goes for torture.

I can't think of a single moral justification for torture, so I hold it should never be a formal policy. But I can't think of any reason to morally condemn a person who tortures a bad guy to save his loved ones when the bad guy has put his loved ones in mortal danger. He just does what he thinks will preserve his values at the time.

When morality goes out the window like that, I never see a one-size-fits-all answer. I've said that often and I haven't changed.

btw - NB had an interesting article somewhere recently where he discussed the difference between a goal and a standard. I believe that kind of thinking is applicable here. You should never make a principle your goal. A principle is a standard you use to measure your actions and goals. Your goals are projections (abstractions) of potential concretes, not abstractions of abstractions.

I think blind contextless adherence to any principle (i.e., treating it as a goal instead of a measure) negates the use of a person's own eyes and brain in carrying out the business of survival.

Anyone who suggests that Beck does not bring a strong appreciation of history to his views is pathetically ignorant. And foolishly exposing himself as someone with "predigested rigid prejudices."

Amen to that (by which I understand to mean as "pathetically ignorant of Beck's work").

Beck also does something I find really rare in almost every public political discussion area I have read or viewed. He corrects himself--and publicly says so--when he learns he was wrong. And he does this without it affecting his self-confidence or keenness in trying to correctly understand what's happening. Someone should make a video of the times he has done this. It would be an eye-opener to a lot of people.

Also, I can't think of one Beck critic who has his track record in correctly predicting large scale social events, both good and bad. And being blasted for it--with the folks who blasted the hardest later touting themselves as experts on the result they didn't believe in before. Beck has been doing that ever since the Bush years--not to mention his more recent exposés of ACORN, Van Jones, George Soros, the Arab Spring, etc.

It goes like this:

1. Beck says something is coming for such and such reasons. Granted, that something is usually bad.
2. People say he's crazy, conspiracy kook, danger to society, promoter of violence and hatred, etc. etc. etc.
3. The bad thing actually happens as he said.
4. But Beck's own events are always peaceful--never a single arrest or anything like that.
5. The former critics start talking about the bad thing as if Beck had never mentioned it, but they shut up about him for a bit.
6. After a small amount of time, they slowly start back blasting him and the people who say they like him (usually calling them ignorant yahoos, just as crazy as Beck, etc.).

Then Beck says something else bad is coming.

And off it goes all over again--just like clockwork.

How many times does this have to happen before these knuckleheads start seeing a pattern? I mean, after the first dozen or so times, you would have thought the knuckleheads would see how ridiculous they make themselves in the minds of people who do see the pattern.

It's almost a comedy routine to watch these days. And as predictable as Pavlov's dogs salivating with the bell.

Michael

Isn't it interesting that all the "arguments" against the saintly Glenn Beck that Michael repeatedly cites as clueless and uninformed are never offered by any of the Beck critics (excuse me, I mean "Beck haters") around here? Perhaps the people who offer these "arguments" do actually exist, but God (I mean Galt) knows where. (Maybe if you spend all your time paying attention to rightwing media, because you think, for some mysterious reason, that the right wing is on the side of the free market and small government, you would have encountered such people - but I haven't.

Perplexedly,

JR

[Brant Gaede]

I can't say much about Glenn Beck for I've never deigned to watch him except once: stuff on a blackboard; I turned it off. I am part of and participate on a neo-con site and it leaves me halfway there and halfway here, libertarian Ron Paul here, and I have to say one is too much out there and the other too much in here, geo-politically. Reading what I write the OL denizens may think I am JR simpatico, and I yam, but JR and I are fundamentally different in basic WTF should the US be doing this in the world for? One way or the other, even falling-on-the-face other, and that's what I did, people like me make safe a world, sort of, for people like him. It's a high price, if I die, and I didn't. I may have made no difference to anyone including him as to actual and objective substance, but the idea of me and warrior-for-freedom mine--literally--is what really makes the American freedom world go round. Even if you fight for the illusion of freedom you are fighting for freedom. Never mind China; the 21st century will be the American century just as the 20th was. Good or bad, that's what'll be and already is right now! Call it an empire, call it a republic, call it a democracy, it makes no difference; it's state! state! state! all the way! The trick is to bridle this horse and corral it in liberty--de-estate the state.

--Brant

full of it

Edited August 28, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[Dennis Hardin]

You have argued that torture when used against proper targets is a good thing--

Regarding your statement that "so far at least, the government has managed to prevent a recurrence of 9/11--

My mistake. I meant the Eighth Amendment--

Politically correct? I had no idea that the founders--

John Yoo, along with the rest of the pack of Bush appointed lackeys, are a bunch of fucking liars--

You would use this as an example of the effective use of torture--

In your moral calculus, bombing, invading, and occupying countries in non-defensive wars--

Martin

Your entire response consists of (a) unsubstantiated charges against the U.S. government, which, even if true (and I sincerely doubt they are true) are entirely irrelevant to the moral case for torture; ( b ) Blind, self-righteous ignorance of the number of potential terrorist attacks that have been thwarted by governmental anti-terrorist efforts; ( c ) a sly attempt to corrupt a Constitutional Amendment by expanding it to apply to foreign enemies and prisoners of war; (d) the insane charge that torture is only motivated by sadism (please seek counseling); (e) the nonsensical suggestion that anyone would propose torturing innocent people for any purpose; (f) irrelevant comments about France and Algeria; (g) a totally absurd distortion of my views on what constitutes moral military intervention and (h) a smearing of Objectivism.

I’m not about to waste my time answering such unadulterated bullshit, other than to point out that your post consists of unadulterated bullshit.

[Dennis Hardin]

For anyone who thinks Ayn Rand would have regarded the torture of foreign criminals in order to protect innocent American lives as immoral. . .

Vintage Mickey Spillane:

NOTE: In each quotation the first person speaker is the protagonist, Mike Hammer.

I snapped the side of the rod across his jaw and laid the flesh open to the bone. He dropped the sap and staggered into the big boy with a scream starting to come up out of his throat only to get it cut off in the middle as I pounded his teeth back with the end of the barrel. The big guy . . . got so mad he came right at me with his head down and I took my own time about kicking him in the face. He smashed into the door and lay there bubbling . . For laughs I gave him a taste of his own sap on the back of his hand and felt the bones go into splinters.

From The Big Kill

“Hello Cobbie,” I said.

The pimp was more like a weasel backed into corner than a man. “What do you want?"

“Not what you’re selling. By the way, who are you selling these days?”

“Try and find out, banana nose.”

I said okay and grabbed a handful of skin around his leg and squeezed. Cobbie dropped his drink and started cursing. When spit drooled out of the corner of his mouth I quit and ordered him another drink. He could hardly find his face with it. “I could punch holes in you and make you talk if I felt like it, pal,” I grinned.

From My Gun Is Quick

He tried to get up so fast he fell flat on his face. He made it on the second try and came up swinging, only this time I was ready. I smashed one into his mouth and the guy slammed against the car, but that didn’t stop him. I saw his left looping out and got under it and came into hi with a sharp one-two that doubled him over. I didn’t try to play it clean. I brought my knee up and smashed his nose to a pulp and when he screamed he choked on his own blood.

I bent over and yanked him up and held him against the car, then used my fist on his face until his hands fell away and he was out with his eyes wide open.

When I let go he folded up and sat in the gravel staring into the dark.

I lit a match and cupped it near his face, or what was left of it. . .

From My Gun is Quick

From a review of a collection of Spillane’s novels:

Hammer's techniques and attitude are sometimes gruesome, intolerable, and plain repulsive.

But that's the appeal! Even if you can't stand Hammer's ethics, it's impossible not to read his adventures compulsively from start to finish.

. . .Mike Hammer again swears revenge, this time for the vicious murder of a girl he picked up on the road when she threw herself in front of his car. The revenge quest gets him embroiled with the mob. . .

I lost count of the number of Mafia goons that Hammer kills, usually with his bare hands, when opportunity presents.

Another point of view:

It is absurd that the same esthetes, who claim the above obscenity [Nabokov’s "Lolita"] as “adult” and “artistic,” should voice concern over the ‘immoral’ influence of Mickey Spillane.

They allege that ‘sex and violence’ are the cause of his popular appeal. What they hate him for is the fact that Mickey Spillane is an intransigent moral crusader.

. . .His hero, Mike Hammer, is a moral avenger, passionately dedicated to justice, to the defense of the wronged and to the destruction of evil.

That bitter, but intensely moralistic view of life is the key to the secret of Mickey Spillane’s unparalleled popularity throughout the world. . .

Ayn Rand, review of The Girl Hunters, LA Times, 9-2-62

“An intransigent moral crusader.. . .[A] moral avenger, passionately dedicated to justice, to the defense of the wronged and to the destruction of evil. . “

That perfectly describes Jack Bauer. Rand would have loved ’24.’

[Dennis Hardin]

How many times does this have to happen before these knuckleheads start seeing a pattern? I mean, after the first dozen or so times, you would have thought the knuckleheads would see how ridiculous they make themselves in the minds of people who do see the pattern.

It's almost a comedy routine to watch these days. And as predictable as Pavlov's dogs salivating with the bell.

Michael

I would like to apologize to Pavlov's dogs for this unfortunate comparison. They are dogs. Unlike some OL members (and you know who you are, don't you?), they could not think if they had wanted to.

I'm sure they would have wanted to be human, given a choice. What are we to think of hoity-toity airheads who, from all the evidence we can see, would prefer to be dogs?

[Dennis Hardin]

I think I saw a part of one episode in which he kills somebody at the end, someone who is all tied up. It might have been another show all together, another show I haven't been watching too. I heard snippets about torture in Vietnam from the intelligence non-commissioned officers, usually as practiced by the South Vietnamese. It was rather mild stuff compared to things I've read. There was a famous case in 1969 in which the bird colonel commander of the Fifth SF Group in Vietnam lied to General Abrams about a certain case that resulted in a Vietnamese double agent either being rolled out of a helicopter into Nha Trang Bay or taken out in a boat and dumped. Abrams wanted a murder trial, but the CIA refused to cooperate and the Nixon White House shut the whole thing down. Up to that time SF in Vietnam had two masters, regular military as represented by Abrams and the CIA. After that, the CIA seems to have faded its involvement with SF. Anyway, I'd guess I know a lot more about this subject than you do. Could be wrong. I haven't even touched on the necessary mind set of the professional torturer. I'm the guy who'd need courage to torture someone, not him. If Jack Bauer's torturing is an expression of heroism needing great courage, he's an amateur. He'd be a self-torturing torturer, not someone who could go home to his wife and kids and love them as if he'd come home from working in the bank writing up loans.

--Brant

Well now, I can see this is an exercise in critical thinking. Let’s break it down. Military commanders sometimes do bad things and presidents engage in cover-ups. So torture is always evil.

And I shouldn’t offer a moral defense of the practice of torturing murderous scum-bags, even though there is plenty of evidence that it saves innocent lives, because you saw lots of bad stuff going in while you were in the military and I didn’t.

A non sequitur followed by an appeal to authority. Thanks so much for the lesson.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Isn't it interesting that all the "arguments" against the saintly Glenn Beck that Michael repeatedly cites as clueless and uninformed are never offered by any of the Beck critics (excuse me, I mean "Beck haters") around here?

Jeff,

Your lack of reading damages your argument.

You really should do some searching before you make broad statements like that.

I'll dig up quotes on OL if you like, but, really, you should do your own research. (Off the top of my head, I recall one poster coming down hard on Beck in a thread he opened just for that purpose, if I remember correctly, then admitting to me later in that thread that he had never watched Beck's show.)

I will grant you that the circular pattern I mentioned applies more to the mainstream culture at large than specifically to OL, but it's here on OL, too.

btw - Are you, Jeff, familiar first-hand with Beck's stuff? Inquiring minds and all...

Michael

[jriggenbach]

btw - Are you, Jeff, familiar first-hand with Beck's stuff? Inquiring minds and all.

There's clearly no need for me to answer your question, Michael. You already know the answer. Obviously, I've never even laid eyes on Glenn Beck, much less any of his TV shows; nor have I ever heard his voice or read a word he's written. I'm a "Beck Hater," am I not? Isn't that prima facie evidence of my complete ignorance of his glorious work? If I had ever actually exposed myself to any of that work, I would have been swept away by the greatness and the profundity of it all and would be running up and down the road attending his rallies whenever I wasn't glued to my TV set basking in the wonder of his intellect and his commitment to individual liberty.

QED

JR

Edited August 28, 2011 by Jeff Riggenbach

[jriggenbach]

You have argued that torture when used against proper targets is a good thing--

Regarding your statement that "so far at least, the government has managed to prevent a recurrence of 9/11--

My mistake. I meant the Eighth Amendment--

Politically correct? I had no idea that the founders--

John Yoo, along with the rest of the pack of Bush appointed lackeys, are a bunch of fucking liars--

You would use this as an example of the effective use of torture--

In your moral calculus, bombing, invading, and occupying countries in non-defensive wars--

Martin

Your entire response consists of (a) unsubstantiated charges against the U.S. government, which, even if true (and I sincerely doubt they are true) are entirely irrelevant to the moral case for torture; ( b ) Blind, self-righteous ignorance of the number of potential terrorist attacks that have been thwarted by governmental anti-terrorist efforts; ( c ) a sly attempt to corrupt a Constitutional Amendment by expanding it to apply to foreign enemies and prisoners of war; (d) the insane charge that torture is only motivated by sadism (please seek counseling); (e) the nonsensical suggestion that anyone would propose torturing innocent people for any purpose; (f) irrelevant comments about France and Algeria; (g) a totally absurd distortion of my views on what constitutes moral military intervention and (h) a smearing of Objectivism.

I'm not about to waste my time answering such unadulterated bullshit, other than to point out that your post consists of unadulterated bullshit.

Yeah, Martin, great post. When you leave Dennis spluttering like this, you know you've cut through to the heart of the matter. It is rather comical, though, isn't it, when his puffed up moral outrage gets in the way of his ability to formulate his uninformed "thoughts"? It's rather like watching a man trip over his own feet and plunge headfirst into a manhole - you know, the kind of thing you might see in an old Laurel and Hardy movie.

Best,

JR

[Brant Gaede]

I think I saw a part of one episode in which he kills somebody at the end, someone who is all tied up. It might have been another show all together, another show I haven't been watching too. I heard snippets about torture in Vietnam from the intelligence non-commissioned officers, usually as practiced by the South Vietnamese. It was rather mild stuff compared to things I've read. There was a famous case in 1969 in which the bird colonel commander of the Fifth SF Group in Vietnam lied to General Abrams about a certain case that resulted in a Vietnamese double agent either being rolled out of a helicopter into Nha Trang Bay or taken out in a boat and dumped. Abrams wanted a murder trial, but the CIA refused to cooperate and the Nixon White House shut the whole thing down. Up to that time SF in Vietnam had two masters, regular military as represented by Abrams and the CIA. After that, the CIA seems to have faded its involvement with SF. Anyway, I'd guess I know a lot more about this subject than you do. Could be wrong. I haven't even touched on the necessary mind set of the professional torturer. I'm the guy who'd need courage to torture someone, not him. If Jack Bauer's torturing is an expression of heroism needing great courage, he's an amateur. He'd be a self-torturing torturer, not someone who could go home to his wife and kids and love them as if he'd come home from working in the bank writing up loans.

--Brant

Well now, I can see this is an exercise in critical thinking. Let's break it down. Military commanders sometimes do bad things and presidents engage in cover-ups. So torture is always evil.

And I shouldn't offer a moral defense of the practice of torturing murderous scum-bags, even though there is plenty of evidence that it saves innocent lives, because you saw lots of bad stuff going in while you were in the military and I didn't.

A non sequitur followed by an appeal to authority. Thanks so much for the lesson.

I didn't say I saw it, if you mean torture. I dressed out my story for its own sake. Could I torture someone under certain circumstances? Yes, but I have no training in interrogation, of which torture would be a subset. It would probably damage me psychologically. For any States to morally justify and use torture they first have to become much better in governance than they are now, much more rights' protecting and much less rights' violating. The locus of our contretemps here is you are dealing with the issue purely as a philosophical abstraction I cannot apply to the world's rotten governments and what they do; certainly not to what is being revealed to be a fascist, war-mongering, imperialist America. When you throw out-right torture into that stink pot, I get pissed off.

--Brant