WWJD?

[thistlechaser]

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists.

Sadface! Torture is never an acceptable answer!

"people unaffiliated with any religious group were least likely to back torture"

Yay, I fit!

(I wonder at their sample size though. 742 Americans? What an odd number, and seems like it really should have been a bigger group...)

Comments

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

Ironically, a lot of the people that are suspected terrorists are the religious extremists.

That's not just referring to the stereotypical Arab terrorist. Let's look at the Christian fanatics that bomb abortion clinics. Do you think the Christians would want those people tortured? Of course not. But hey, that Iraqi over there just kicked a loose brick out of a building, GET THE WATERBOARDING EQUIPMENT!

I think most acts on both sides, the terrorists and the torturers, are because of religious ignorance.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Which is so sad. I'm supposed to be the godless immoral one, but I'm nicer than so many religious folks!

*fistshakes* Don't make me act badly on purpose, you all!

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

I don't know if these responses have so much to do with religion or if it's just that torture is such a gray area for a lot of poeple. Like, randomly torturing terror suspects to find out plans that may or may not exist, I'm against that. But if someone says: "I've got some trapped underground and they will run out of air in 5 hours unless I get a bunch of money" and they get their money and refuse to give a location, break their fingers and put electrodes on their balls until an answer is given. (I've been watching too much Dirty Harry)

Plus with such a small sample size and such close numbers a moderate group of nut jobs can influence the numbers one way or another more so then if they had a larger sample size.

[voidmagus.livejournal.com]

I'm not affiliated with any religious group, myself, and my views are close to yours Veloxe. Random torture is ineffective and pointless...Torture, when properly applied (which means used minimally) in conjunction with the full array of interrogation techniques can be used to effectively gather intel if you're sure the person in question possesses that information.

Torturing someone who doesn't know anything gives you way too many false positives to be worthwhile.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I really wish they'd do this again with a larger sample size. (I wonder if they did, but the larger group didn't give such news-worthy results?)

But if someone says: "I've got some trapped underground and they will run out of air in 5 hours unless I get a bunch of money" and they get their money and refuse to give a location, break their fingers and put electrodes on their balls until an answer is given.

See, I'm not really sure about that. Yes the information is needed, and needed fast, but that doesn't make torture right...

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Ya but the question wasn't if torture was right or not. Someone is seriously screwed up if they are just willing to say that torture is "right", period. It was if torture could be justified or not. Similar to war, war isn't right (morally speaking) ever, but it is justified over and over again.

Now, in the situation I gave I would say that torture could be justified. It's not the right thing to do, but the world doesn't always offer you right vs wrong, it's almost always a gray situation. So I would say that torture is sometimes justified, but it's only in extreme situations. Since it's not right to torture them, but it's also not right to just leave that person trapped underground and go "Oh well, we can't torture cause that's wrong and they won't give us the info, so they're screwed."

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I don't think I can agree with that. If something isn't right, it can't be justified. Heck, merriam-webster.com agrees with me! :P

justify
One entry found.

* Main Entry: jus·ti·fy
* Pronunciation: \ˈjəs-tə-ˌfī\
* Function: verb
1 a : to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable

Justified means you're in the right, you're doing something right, and torture isn't right.

but it's also not right to just leave that person trapped underground and go "Oh well, we can't torture cause that's wrong and they won't give us the info, so they're screwed."

But there are lots of other ways to get info...

It's not an easy situation though!

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Not really, if you look at it from purely morality it can't be right. But right itself has many meanings and can be interpreted in many ways, just like justified (hence, or). In my situation I can justify torture without it having to be right in a moral sense. Hell, if I had to I could come up with a situation where I could justify throwing puppies off of cliffs, which certainly isn't morally right, but could still be justified. I'm personally waiting for other ways to get the info in a time limit when the person won't talk :P

[pomr.livejournal.com]

I know the perfect method of toture that NOBODY could possibly resist -- MAKE THEM WATCH CARROT TOP WORK OUT!

Fiendish, I know.

Do the Clockwork Orange thing, bolt them into a chair with a rig to keep their eyes wide open, and then have someone there to lubricate the eyes with soothing eye drops.

VICTORY!
And it leaves nary a mark on them (unless their struggles cause themselves injury -- which is hardly MY Fault)

[pomr.livejournal.com]

Also -- that sample size is pathetic, and probably taken from a fairly small geographic area. If you want (more) accurate numbers you'd need to sample all over the place and a lot more folks.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wish they'd redo it with a larger pool of people...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! Remind me never to fall into your hands! :D

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

You don't think evil enough.

Bolt them to a chair, keep their eyes open with something to lubricate, and force them to play Superman 64. If they can beat the game, the chair frees them. Every time they die though, they get a nice kidney punch.

I don't know if I'd do that to Hitler bin Laden.

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Kidney punch? Don't be silly achi, that it way to much physical effort. Every time they die, BAM! Shock collar goes off. Have to use technology to you're advantage man.

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

I originally put a taser shock in that spot, but thought about things that would try to be invisible attacks, thought electrocution would be more visible.

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Clearly achi was tired/drugged when that was posted and as such it made little sense. You could always just put the shock device in a less visible place, or maybe make many of them in the chair itself. So like sometimes it would hit you in the arm, or the leg, or parts of the back, so they would never know what direction it was coming from, just that it was coming.

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

Achi just mostly doesn't know how a taser works.

And was partly drugged.

[peppygrowlithe.livejournal.com]

It's been a long while, so I can't say for sure, but I believe 700 is a perfectly respectable number. It surprised me when I learned about it in, um... economics or statistics class, something like that. I would have assumed you'd need, like, thousands of folks to get accurate statistics, but you can get fairly accurate data from surprisingly small chunks of people. 700 probably has within maybe a 3% plus or minus range, likely less.

But it has been a long time since high school, and if what I just typed is total crap, I'd be pleased to be called out on it!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah! Well good then!

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Not in this situation, no. 700 is in no way going to be able to account for cultural differences in different parts of the country, which could easily skew the data.