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<p>Uhhh, no! Sure, I might steal if I was going hungry, that doesn’t make it right and if I were caught I would have to accept the consequences. What you are arguing is that because torture yields information it is acceptable.</p>
<p>“The two links provided had people claiming that torture saved lives…that doesn’t mean it ALWAYS saves lives, but some of the time is better than none.”</p>
<p>So then you would advocate bringing back the rack, the iron maiden, horses for drawing and quartering, flaying alive, etc.? Those techniques probably work also.</p>
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<p>If torture saves American lives then I’m all for it. </p>
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<p>Numerous studies have shown that these techniques do not work. If they did however I’d be all for them. Fortunately such practices as waterboarding and, as someone pointed out, befriending prisoners are often very effective.</p>
<p>“Medical issue”</p>
<p>Sorry to hear it. At least you got to spend some time at West Point. It’s quite a place and you should be proud of yourself for having gone there whatever the outcome.</p>
<p>People who shoot doctors that perform abortions or bomb abortion clinics claim it saves lives. </p>
<p>That doesn’t make it justifiable, or right.</p>
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<p>That’s a weak argument and you know it. In that particular case the question of life is up for debate…I hardly think the question of life is up for debate concerning 22 yr old Americans</p>
<p>“When my son was 17 he had a recruiter come to the house and some of the stuff he said was mendacious to say the least. Such as you would not have to go to Iraq if you did not want to. You get to choose what you are trained in so you would not have to go into a war zone. The army is just like joining a corporation - you get to choose your job. Yeah - right.”</p>
<p>One of my secretaries has a partner who was sucked in by that line.
He is nice guy, but isnt too bright. He was told that he would learn a trade and would never have to go to a dangerzone. Guess what ? He has now spent 2 years in Iraq.</p>
<p>Sadly, the military recruiters prey on the vulnerable, the less educated and those who are not intelligent enough to see through their mendacity.</p>
<p>“Numerous studies have shown that these techniques do not work.”</p>
<p>BS. I’m sure they work just fine. The problem is they are morally reprehensible.</p>
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<p>Once again I’ll go by what studies say as opposed to CC posters. That being said the difference between what you mentioned and waterboarding is in waterboarding there is no physical damage. The subject never ever comes close to drowning, they just feel like they’re going to drown. After the rag is removed they feel completely normal again.</p>
<p>I’m just trying to make the point that “saving lives” does not make torture appropriate.</p>
<p>We are a nation that purports itself to be about a better system of government yet we hypocritically engage in actions that we would condemn other countries if they subjected our citizens to the same practices.</p>
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<p>At what point do you say that certain morals, in a certain sense, need to be trumped in order for lives to be saved. Is it one life? 100? 1,000? 10 million?</p>
<p>“The subject never ever comes close to drowning, they just feel like they’re going to drown.”</p>
<p>No, sometimes they actually do drown. Apparently, it’s a tricky procedure and not something to try at home.</p>
<p>"I’m a Navy Veteran yet when a Navy recruiter called my house looking for my then 17-year-old son I told him that he was welcome to call my son when he (my son) turned 18. Until that time I would not allow him to take unsolicited phone calls from military recruiters.
I understand recruiters have a job to do and are under tremendous pressure to produce numbers. …I do strongly disagree with the federal law requiring schools to give recruiters personal information on their students however. "</p>
<p>Nothing like ringing them when they are young and impressionable.
It is amazing how few Congressmen have sent their children into the military.</p>
<p>It is the same story here in Australia.
Our politicians cannot imagine sending their children to the military and instead send them into Law and Medicine. Instead, the lower ranks of our military is largely staffed by young people from our western suburbs ( our euphemism for areas of severe socioeconomic deprivation, ie: the slums )</p>
<p>“At what point do you say that certain morals, in a certain sense, need to be trumped in order for lives to be saved. Is it one life? 100? 1,000? 10 million?”</p>
<p>Thats a big question. And when you make that first amoral step onto that steep and very slippery slope, and then another, and then another, how do you know when you’ve become a Nazi?</p>
<p>Interestingly, at West Point a single lie will get you booted out of the Academy. They take morals extremely seriously there; one infraction and you’re out for good.</p>
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<p>[Kaj</a> Larsen: A Lesson For Mukasey: Why I Had Myself Water-Boarded - Politics on The Huffington Post](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>A Lesson For Mukasey: Why I Had Myself Water-Boarded | HuffPost Latest News)</p>
<p>Do you have a link to said drownings?</p>
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<p>Have you taken a class on argumentative rhetoric? The slippery slope technique is never accepted as a logical form of rhetoric. The only time you see it used is next to continuum fallacy…it’s just flat out wrong. Sorry.</p>
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<p>At the point at which we are at least moral enough to admit that despite all of our rhetoric to the contrary we do in fac torture people and also look the other way when other nations do so on our behalf.</p>
<p>Of course all of this is ok because as Bob Dylan so aptly put it we “accept it all bravely with God on our side.”</p>
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<p>And I’ve seen many kids kicked out on such grounds</p>
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<p>I give McCain credit for having 2 of his sons in the military</p>
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<p>There is something we can agree on. (Jim Webb too)</p>