Enhanced Interrogation- from a guy who did it, and saved a lot of lives

[jamil]

I'm talking Liberty, not your personal economics of practicality. Justify extracting info or don't.

Have you not been paying attention? I can't justify it using your standards. I have justified it using mine.

 

[ATM]

Justify sitting idly by and watching people die.

What is there to justify? Who is doing the killing? Certainly not the one I would be waterboarding for info, right?

Whether you like Jamil's economics or not; whether you like my values or not, you play in the same game. You just won't admit it to yourself. At some point, you will sacrifice the Liberty of another for your own security.

Give me the time and date, I want to record it.

Liberty is meaningless to those under constant threat of violence from a superior force.

Speak for yourself. Liberty is meaningless to you.

Security means nothing to the prisoner.

You are a prisoner and security seems fairly important to you.

 

[ATM]

Have you not been paying attention? I can't justify it using your standards. I have justified it using mine.

Then it seems you have none. Arbitrary and changing standards are not standards at all. You must retreat to your preferred savior, subjectivism, which is just a lie writ large.

 

[ATM]

You said you would commit violence to protect your family. Didn't you?

I'd certainly be tempted to. If I did, commit violence to extract info, I would expect consequences because I would be doing something wrong.

I wouldn't attempt to justify it.

If I was stopping one in the act, that would be justifiable.

 

[Woobie]

I'd certainly be tempted to. If I did, commit violence to extract info, I would expect consequences because I would be doing something wrong.

I wouldn't attempt to justify it.

If I was stopping one in the act, that would be justifiable.

And who would determine the consequences?

 

[Woobie]

What is there to justify? Who is doing the killing? Certainly not the one I would be waterboarding for info, right?



Give me the time and date, I want to record it.



Speak for yourself. Liberty is meaningless to you.



You are a prisoner and security seems fairly important to you.

Ah, you attempt to apply your own values to my life. And yet you are the guardian of Liberty.

 

[ATM]

And who would determine the consequences?

Whoever has authority to, possibly several layers. Are you admitting that consequences for such actions to extract info would be just?

 

[ATM]

Ah, you attempt to apply your own values to my life. And yet you are the guardian of Liberty.

I apply value to all life, don't you?

 

[jamil]

Give me the time and date, I want to record it.

He's making a prediction based on human nature. Perhaps you can defy that. It's not as black and white as you imagine.

Speak for yourself. Liberty is meaningless to you.

See. This is what I miss about discussing things with Libertarians. This is what happens when normal people talk to libertarians. You get frustrated and start revealing yourselves as binary thinkers. You think you can make everything objective. And in so doing you convolute the practical interactions between humans.

For most things in life, to most people, it depends. And saying that is very reasonable, contrary to your need to make everything more objective than it can be. Your assertion here is logically, reasonably, utter nonsense. There there can be degrees to which liberty matters. There aren't just two states of liberty, where it's either on or off. There are infinitely variable degrees.

You are a prisoner and security seems fairly important to you.

Again, utter nonsense. Some people may have more liberty than others. That's just an artifact of living in a society, and some more dictatorial societies have less freedom than other societies. That doesn't mean that if I don't have absolute freedom to do whateverthe****Iwanto, that I am absolutely a prisoner.

Then it seems you have none. Arbitrary and changing standards are not standards at all. You must retreat to your preferred savior, subjectivism, which is just a lie writ large.

Again. Absolutes. If you can't grasp the variable nature of the world, you're just not going to play well in it trying to control things with a toggle switch when a potentiometer is more useful. And we're not likely to have a very fruitful or reasoned discussion. And that's not my fault. It's yours.

So, let's discuss objectivism vs subjectivism. I'm not an advocate of either. I don't make concepts objective or subjective. They are what they are regardless of what I want them to be. I am equipped with the reason to determine which noun applies to a given context. But that equipment isn't reserved just for me. Anyone can use it if they dare.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Restricting individual freedoms. OK. I suppose that's true in the same way I'm restricting someone's right to life by shooting them as they are attacking my family. We do restrict specific freedoms for specific safety reasons all the time. Or are you ready to tell me you have a problem with taking a murderer off the streets? We don't throw everyone in jail so they don't kill each other, and we shouldn't restrict everyone's right to exercise their religion, even if specific adherents are violent. We restrict the individual.

This isn't a blanket torture for blanket public safety. I don't fire rounds into the crowd to stop one person who I think looks like they might attack my family. This is targeted to specific individuals involved in the proliferation of specific attacks. Also, I still haven't seen a good argument that this is torture.

No, it's not the same at all. You can restrict the liberties of those who are actively committing a crime, or those who have committed a crime...Things that are PROVEN. I'm not, nor do I think ATM, is arguing that point. One ends up being on the wrong side of liberty, by employing force to enact a seizure. If this person hasn't committed a crime related to the information wished to be obtained - you can't touch him. If the person has committed a crime related to the information wished to be obtained - you STILL can't touch them.

 

[Woobie]

Whoever has authority to, possibly several layers. Are you admitting that consequences for such actions to extract info would be just?

Under what authority would "whoever" set the consequences?

It doesn't matter if I think there should be consequences. But you said there would be. So I want to see whose punishment you would submit to, and under what authority they must be acting.

 

[Woobie]

No, it's not the same at all. You can restrict the liberties of those who are actively committing a crime, or those who have committed a crime...Things that are PROVEN. I'm not, nor do I think ATM, is arguing that point. One ends up being on the wrong side of liberty, by employing force to enact a seizure. If this person hasn't committed a crime related to the information wished to be obtained - you can't touch him. If the person has committed a crime related to the information wished to be obtained - you STILL can't touch them.

What do you mean you can't touch someone who has committed a crime? Can you incarcerate them? How would you go about doing that without touching them?

Can you touch someone committing a crime?

Is a foreign national, acting on behalf of a foreign terror organization or government, blowing up a subway a criminal act, an act of war, or both?

 

[Kutnupe14]

What do you mean you can't touch someone who has committed a crime? Can you incarcerate them? How would you go about doing that without touching them?

"Touch," as in torture while interrogating. Obviously, you can lock them up.

 

[Woobie]

"Touch," as in torture while interrogating. Obviously, you can lock them up.

How about the other questions? Can you rough somebody up while they are committing a crime to stop them from committing that crime?

So you use the word torture. Look at the CIA list of approved methods and tell me which ones you view as torture.

 

[indiucky]

"Touch," as in torture while interrogating. Obviously, you can lock them up.

Would forcing someone to listen to this version of Blueberry Hill constitute torture???? My dad said it would...

[video=youtube;qrhspylZSNI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrhspylZSNI[/video]

 

[jamil]

No, it's not the same at all. You can restrict the liberties of those who are actively committing a crime, or those who have committed a crime...Things that are PROVEN. I'm not, nor do I think ATM, is arguing that point. One ends up being on the wrong side of liberty, by employing force to enact a seizure. If this person hasn't committed a crime related to the information wished to be obtained - you can't touch him. If the person has committed a crime related to the information wished to be obtained - you STILL can't touch them.

I don't like trying to make these comparisons with our criminal justice system. I see this as outside of that realm. And admittedly in a grey area. They're not quite like POWs, but they aren't really incarcerated criminals of our criminal justice system. I think the in people in this thread who at least lean on the side of trying to get information from terrorists we've caught, that's just how we look at it. You guys may not like it, and some of you on the other side certainly like to make moral judgements about us, personally.

But I'll say it again. I tend to think it is justified to extract information from terrorists under certain conditions and within certain boundaries. And the decision point is on a fairly linear line. For example, if we had solid intel that the guy we're interrogating has arranged for the world to end tomorrow, he admits that much, but refuses to tell us how to stop it, most people are going to be pretty motivated to get that information out of him somehow. His comfort is not going to concern most people. His liberty, in that case, is unimportant. He has initiated it.

Of course, the motivation to extract information from captives will diminish with different circumstances. The world isn't binary.

 

[Woobie]

Would forcing someone to listen to this version of Blueberry Hill constitute torture???? My dad said it would...

[video=youtube;qrhspylZSNI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrhspylZSNI[/video]

I don't think so. But if Lady GaGa did it, I would have to shoot myself in the ear. I will accept the risk of the bullet going in my brain.

 

[jamil]

I don't think so. But if Lady GaGa did it, I would have to shoot myself in the ear. I will accept the risk of the bullet going in my brain.

Pat Boone singing a trance music version of Blueberry Hill in a duet with with Lady Gaga would definitely do it for me.

 

[Woobie]

Pat Boone singing a trance music version of Blueberry Hill in a duet with with Lady Gaga would definitely do it for me.

Just the thought of that has me considering a preemptive strike on my ear drums.

 

[Alpo]

1) A child buried alive with less than a few hours of air left or, for example,

2) A timed release of a biologic agent already planted with the timer ticking, then

I believe all forms of information extraction are on the table with the most effective means attempted first.

On the other hand, a dissident who shouts "Death to America" and is known to be part of a terrorist cell with no active identifiable threat gets the Pat Boone music.