Torture

[dairygirl4u2c]

those who voted N wouldn't be so bad. if they could show why it's okay to kill but not to torture.
or, spank i guess.
or, put in jail, etc

[jeffpugh]

The argument seems out of proportion now. My $0.02.

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote name='kenrockthefirst' post='1412052' date='Oct 31 2007, 07:37 PM']I can't believe [i]anyone[/i] voted [i]for[/i] torture.[/quote]

I can't believe that anyone would equate torture with smacking a child.

[jeffpugh]

I can't believe people are still harping on about this.

[jeffpugh]

Here's a proposition. How about you treat these terrorist criminals like the infantile renegades they are and just punish them. Don't go through extremes to run water over their face or zap them with electricity or stop them from sleeping, or rub pork on them. Just ground them. If they don't reveal what's goona happen to 1000 people, it's on their conscience. Yeah, I could be one of the thousand, but hey. It would be my time.

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' post='1413411' date='Nov 3 2007, 03:23 AM']Here's a proposition. How about you treat these terrorist criminals like the infantile renegades they are and just punish them. Don't go through extremes to run water over their face or zap them with electricity or stop them from sleeping, or rub pork on them. Just ground them. If they don't reveal what's goona happen to 1000 people, it's on their conscience. Yeah, I could be one of the thousand, but hey. It would be my time.[/quote]

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, if the security services know [i]for sure[/i] that a person is a terrorist criminal, that the person is on the verge of carrying out an attack, and that one thousand people are going to die, then it would be extremely strange for them to have no other details about the planned attack - details needed to stop it, for instance. With this kind of investigation, either you uncover practically the whole plot or you uncover practically nothing at all. Precedent alone tells us that much. This is another reason why torture is so futile.

Creating increasingly unlikely hypothetical scenarios in which torture may look justifiable is just a sick exercise in wish fulfilment, based on this principle: I loathe these evil people and it would be a good thing for them to feel pain. It's a cathartic response to the thought of premediated murder rather than a practical suggestion for preventing it.

[dairygirl4u2c]

there should be a reasonable amount of certainty. it doesn't have to be next to perfect. some mistakes will be made. just like innocent people die when we thinnk they're the enemy and we shoot them etc.

it all boils down to how killing and torture are different, and this has all been debated thoroughly and exhaustively in the torture v killing thread i created.

[friendofJPII]

Heck ya. After 9-11 I say do anything you need to protect us, wire tap, racial profiling, whatever. This is war-time.

I would consider this an act of self-defense rather than torture. If the person doesn't want to be tortured they can fess up.

Edited November 7, 2007 by friendofJPII

[Jesus_lol]

so going by the theme of "torture is okay if it saves lives" that i am seeing here, would you mind if an american GI was captured and tortured by iraq militants to find when/where the next bombing/military action would occur?
if we in the west can justify torture how can we possibly have any ground to stand on when confronting another country about it?

[dairygirl4u2c]

a few points. under the right torture scheme, only the worst situaitons warrant it. so, they shouldn't be tortuing our guys unless it's a bad situation. if they torutre all the time, we're not holding double standards ot think they shouldn't.

also, this is more gray, but we are pursuing truth, they are not. i know both side thinks it's pursuing truth, and if they torture in that name of truth, they are the ones who are in the wrong. we are almost certianly in teh truth, so we are not in the wrong. i don't see compromising being in the truth and not torturing, only because others might torture when they are clearly not in the truth. if the truth is more murky, it's something to consider that maybe we hsouldn't torture but.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' post='1416181' date='Nov 8 2007, 01:21 PM']so going by the theme of "torture is okay if it saves lives" that i am seeing here, would you mind if an american GI was captured and tortured by iraq militants to find when/where the next bombing/military action would occur?
if we in the west can justify torture how can we possibly have any ground to stand on when confronting another country about it?[/quote]


[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1416185' date='Nov 8 2007, 01:33 PM']a few points. under the right torture scheme, only the worst situaitons warrant it. so, they shouldn't be tortuing our guys unless it's a bad situation. if they torutre all the time, we're not holding double standards ot think they shouldn't.

also, this is more gray, but we are pursuing truth, they are not. i know both side thinks it's pursuing truth, and if they torture in that name of truth, they are the ones who are in the wrong. we are almost certianly in teh truth, so we are not in the wrong. i don't see compromising being in the truth and not torturing, only because others might torture when they are clearly not in the truth. if the truth is more murky, it's something to consider that maybe we hsouldn't torture but.[/quote]

Dairygirl gives the only possible answer she can, to wit, we are the Good Guys and they are the Bad Guys, so our torture is OK. This, of course, begs the question, if we, the Good Guys, do the same thing as the Bad Guys do, i.e. torture, how can we claim to be the Good Guys?

As Catholic Anonymous has pointed out, among the insidious outcomes of torture is what it does to the torturer. Not only does torture dehumanize the victim - how can you possibly torture him otherwise - but it [i]dehumanizes the torturer[/i].

Of course, from a pragmatic perspective, a) the expert consensus is that torture does not yield good intel, and b) the use of torture completely undermines our moral authority, as noted by Jesus_lol.

[DemonSlayer]

I can't wait for the next season of 24.

[jeffpugh]

WHY DID YOU BRING THIS THREAD BACK FROM THE DEAD?

[Deb]

You could make them read this thread..............................

I like the wrapping in bacon idea.

[cathqat]

The [i]Catechism[/i] isn't the only Church document or comment on torture:

[quote]Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, [b]whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself[/b]; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.[/quote]([i]Gaudium et Spes[/i], 27)

[quote]The Second Vatican Council, in a passage which retains all its relevance today, forcefully condemned a number of crimes and attacks against human life. Thirty years later, taking up the words of the Council and with the same forcefulness I repeat that condemnation in the name of the whole Church, certain that I am interpreting the genuine sentiment of every upright conscience: "Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction, [b]whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself[/b]; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practise them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonour to the Creator."[/quote]([i]Evangelium Vitae[/i], 3)

[quote]Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature "incapable of being ordered" to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed "intrinsically evil" ([i]intrinsece malum[/i]): they are such [i]always and per se[/i], in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances. Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that "there exist acts which [i]per se[/i] and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object." The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such acts: "Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; [b]whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit[/b]; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator".

With regard to intrinsically evil acts, and in reference to contraceptive practices whereby the conjugal act is intentionally rendered infertile, Pope Paul VI teaches: "Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (cf. Rom 3:8)--in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general."

In teaching the existence of intrinsically evil acts, the Church accepts the teaching of Sacred Scripture. The Apostle Paul emphatically states: "Do not be deceived: neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:9-10).

If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove it. They remain "irremediably" evil acts; [i]per se[/i] and in themselves they are not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person. "As for acts which are themselves sins ([i]cum iam opera ipsa peccata sunt[/i]), Saint Augustine writes, like theft, fornication, blasphemy, who would dare affirm that, by doing them for good motives ([i]causis bonis[/i]), they would no longer be sins, or, what is even more absurd, that they would be sins that are justified?"

Consequently, circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act "subjectively" good or defensible as a choice.[/quote]([i]Veritatis Splendor[/i], 80-81)

The United Nations' [i]Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment[/i] describes torture thus:
[quote]For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.[/quote]
Article 2.2 explicitly states "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

The Holy See acceded with this declaration:
[quote]The Holy See considers the [i]Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment[/i] a valid and suitable instrument for fighting against acts that constitute a serious offence against the dignity of the human person. In recent times the Catholic Church has consistently pronounced itself in favour of unconditional respect for life itself and unequivocally condemned "whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself" (Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution [i]Gaudium et spes[/i], 7 December 1965).

The law of the Church ([i]Code of Canon Law[/i], 1981) and its catechism ([i]Catechism of the Catholic Church[/i], 1987) enumerate and clearly identify forms of behaviour that can harm the bodily or mental integrity of the individual, condemn their perpetrators and call for the abolition of such acts. On 14 January 1978, Pope Paul VI, in his last address to the diplomatic corps, after referring to the torture and mistreatment practised in various countries against individuals, concluded as follows: "How could the Church fail to take up a stern stand ... with regard to torture and to similar acts of violence inflicted on the human person?" Pope John Paul II, for his part, has not failed to affirm that "torture must be called by its proper name" (message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace, 1 January 1980). He has expressed his deep compassion for the victims of torture (World Congress on Pastoral Ministry for Human Rights, Rome, 4 July 1998), and in particular for tortured women (message to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 1 March 1993). In this spirit the Holy See wishes to lend its moral support and collaboration to the international community, so as to contribute to the elimination of recourse to torture, which is inadmissible and inhuman.

The Holy See, in becoming a party to the Convention on behalf of the Vatican City State, undertakes to apply it insofar as it is compatible, in practice, with the peculiar nature of that State.[/quote]

See also [i]Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church[/i] #404:
[quote]In carrying out investigations, the regulation against the use of torture, even in the case of serious crimes, must be strictly observed: "Christ's disciple refuses every recourse to such methods, which nothing could justify and in which the dignity of man is as much debased in his torturer as in the torturer's victim." International juridical instruments concerning human rights correctly indicate a prohibition against torture as a principle which cannot be contravened under any circumstances.[/quote]