Is Obama hurting the Democratic Party by not joining forces with Hilla

[Jester]

Yes, I admit, my post was a bit acid in response to that.

Your opinion, worth about what I wiped off of my shoe yesterday.

This is not just my opinion, proferred in a vacuum. John McCain seems to be pretty convinced, and he seems like the kind of person who'd know.

What definition of "torture" are you considering that excludes this? Because, unless you're making the argument that "one of the finest mind___'s of all time" doesn't constitute severe mental pain or suffering, it seems to fit into any definition I've ever seen, except the absurdly self-serving ones the US has been coming up with recently, specifically engineered to exclude the kinds of torture they'd like to use.

Are you willing to admit you don't know much about the dirty deeds that have to be done to keep the lid on the darker side of human nature for centuries?

Are you saying that I would be surprised at the things that have historically been done to people? That I haven't learned the horrors we've inflicted on each other? If that is the case, then no, I'm not "willing to admit" (a specious formulation, similar to "did you enjoy beating your wife?") that.

Or are you implying that there was some point at which the valiant Jack Bauers of history really did save the world through torture? If that's the argument, then no, I don't really "know much about" that. What would be an example? Usually when societies degenerate to using torture, their purposes are about as virtuous as their methods.

Orwell has an infamous passage (perhaps merely attributed to him) about why you can sleep safely at night due to rough men being willing to do violence on your behalf.

Attributed. The closest it gets is a critique of trendy liberal pacifism, where he says something kind of similar. But if you think Orwell would be defending this foolish war and the unlawful imprisonment and torture of suspects in the name of "fighting terrorism," then I don't think you understand much about George Orwell.

Although one might quote Orwell on this topic for other reasons, notably what it does to a nation when torture is dressed up in fancy language to make it more acceptable.

Think upon that. They are not doing it in your name, and in the main, as I noted above, professional interrogators are leary of brute coercion as a means for inducing information gathering, which is why it isn't common practice.

Well they should be. It is neither ethical nor sensible. Panicked people tell whatever lies they need to stop the overwhelming sensation of imminent drowning.

If KSM was waterboarded, as the CIA director publicly acknowledged, then as far as I am concerned, good.

Fine. Then as far as I'm concerned, and as far as John McCain is concerned, you are condoning torture. If you can sleep with that, good on you. As you rightly point out, it is not being done in my name. It is being done in yours.

-Jester