And how are we supposed to know who has this information if they haven’t given it to us?
I don’t think so. I realize I’m skating on thin ice here but my point is that under some extreme circumstances it should be allowed.
Something else to consider too is that penal institutions around the world routinely farm out the practice of torture to inmates and for no apparent benefit whatsoever. In the US if you are under a certain age and wind up in prison there is something like a 25% chance that you will be raped. No effort is made to seperate the weak little guys who this is likely to happen to even if they are not in prison for a violent offense.
Putting someone like Sadam Hussein through a methadone withdrawl or subjecting Osama Bin Laden to scientifically administered torture techniques designed to maximize pain while minimizing actual physical damage seems like small potaoes to me. There are cruel bloody people in this world and sometimes the best result can only be salvaged through a bit of cruelty in return.
By torturing them silly. Get with the program. 
Christ bob, sometimes I can’t tell if you’re being ironic and insightful or just plain bloody odd.
Nazi Germany was a society where utilitarianism was the highest good, displacing morality. Torture was undeniably a very effective tool for rooting out opposition, all but eliminating any resistance in German society in a short time. Euthanasia was the most effective tool for eliminating endemic poverty and maladjusted, unproductive underclasses which constituted drags on German society and its war machine.
Terror and genocide allowed Nazis regimes to control conquered countries with relatively few soldiers because they simply liquidated anyone who had even any capacity for rebellion.
Replacing morality with utility as the highest good in only limited applications may make you only a little bit of a Nazi redux but you’ll eventually find that once you cross that border, there’s really no other frontier ahead to stop you from adopting the full-blown argument – with all its horrors – that end results are the highest good.
By torturing them silly. Get with the program. [/quote]
I’ve had quite a bit of wine this evening… so, disclaimers and all that…
I think bob is talking about this matter in theoretical terms… I mean, in theory, I think capital punishment is the perfect punishment for certain crimes, yet, in practice, I do not support capital punishment.
bob stated clearly that the only time he would consider torture as acceptable is in situations where we KNOW the subject is guilty (i.e., he has the knowledge we seek and which will save lives). I can accept that. I mean, what is to consider, theoretically, when the balance is the discomfort of some scumbag against the safety of innocents? Now, again, I’m talkin theoritically… Jaboney has a good and valid point… in practice, I don’t think I would do well as the guy administering the discomfort.
And asking about how we KNOW something is a different issue… its what takes us out of theory and into practice.
So what you are saying spook is it’s a slippery slope. I dunno if it’s all that slippery and we could wear a harness I reckon but if there is one person in this forum I would conceed to it’s you. It’s not like I was all that attached to the torture idea anyway.
I suppose you will say the same thing you say to parents after yet another school massacre when they ask why you don’t support stricter gun laws. You don’t think they work and that sometimes we must balance one freedom against another. People sleep quite comfortably in America knowing thousands die each year because of the freedom to own guns or to drive cars.
Thanks Tiger. Even corned on plonk you are one of the best readers around. 
[quote=“spook”]Nazi Germany was a society where utilitarianism was the highest good, displacing morality. Torture was undeniably a very effective tool for rooting out opposition, all but eliminating any resistance in German society in a short time. Euthanasia was the most effective tool for eliminating endemic poverty and maladjusted, unproductive underclasses which constituted drags on German society and its war machine.
Terror and genocide allowed Nazis regimes to control conquered countries with relatively few soldiers because they simply liquidated anyone who had even any capacity for rebellion.
Replacing morality with utility as the highest good in only limited applications may make you only a little bit of a Nazi redux but you’ll eventually find that once you cross that border, there’s really no other frontier ahead to stop you from adopting the full-blown argument – with all its horrors – that end results are the highest good.[/quote]
spook,
As usual, you make a compelling argument.
However, there is a very important difference, IMO, between the guy who uses torture for bad and the guy who uses torture for good.
That was the part that scared me. Those bloody nazis woulda made lamp shades outta my ass!
Yeah, I agree. But I don’t imagine that the use of torture will do much good to the good guy using it, nor will it feel any different to the victim. I also suspect that most people, most of the time, think that they’re in the right and doing good–no matter how heinous their actions in the eyes of others.
I think that it’s a very, very slippery slope. And even if it weren’t, the dangers that lay at the bottom are so fearsome that even a slight possibility of falling afoul of them should send us scurrying off in another direction.
I don’t think you guys have given serious thought to my methadone idea. Thousands upon thousands of doctors in numerous countries around the world use that stuff just to get people off heroin knowing full well that withdrawl from methadone is WORSE than withdrawl from heroin. It may cause those doctors serious psychological damage but I haven’t seen any report of it. In the time Saddam has been in custody so far he could have been put through numerous withdrawls yielding gods knows how much information.
Hang on, wasn’t methadone actually invented by the nazis as a tool of torture? 
Lemme do a search…
Nope, but that used to be the word on the street. Anyway…
[quote]Methadone was first synthetized in 1939 at the pharmaceutical laboratories of the I.G. Farbenkonzern, a subsidiary of the Farbwerke Hoechst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
… it is dishonest to state that
Yes… but, that’s a different issue.
I think I have a pretty good idea as to the difference between good and bad.
Torture based on bigoted hate… bad
Torture of known guilty person in order to save lives… good (well, you know what I mean).
Under normal circumstances, yes. But, we’re not talking about normal situations here:
Well, it’s not as cool as Josey Wales, but, from ‘A Man for All Seasons’
crookedtimber.org/
(scroll down to “A Less Fastidious Time”)
Which, like the poster linked to, I don’t remember from the movie either (never read /seen the play.)
But of course the most famous quote
[quote]Roper:
So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
More:
Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper:
Yes, I
Good stuff MikeN but what still gets me is what a double standard we (I think I can say we as most western countries would proceed similarly) employ. Of all people detained in this war Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden (if he is ever caught) will be the two MOST guilty and the two MOST able to provide useful information, but in fact who gets tortured? The guy whoose guilt hasn’t been established and who may not possess any useful information at all. Why is it that the high minded ideals, in practice, are usually reserved for the biggest bastards on the block? That’s what I don’t get.
I’d heard the Nazi and Adolphene bit before but not it’s manufacture for torture. It was basically devised as an alternative painkiller lest the Nazis lose their supply lines to opium during the war.
As for doctors acknowledging the harm methadone does relative to handing out medical grade heroin, there was a very strong push by concerned medicos in Australia for a trial heroin handout for addicts in the ACT.
Like so much else that offered some promise it was ironically aborted by Australian conservative politicians, chiefly John (wanker) Howard. There was some nonesense mentioned about the US suddenly declariing Australia a rogue nation or some such for liberalsing drug use. Something about it being one of the largest producers of medical opiates and handing it to people that basically wanted/needed it.
As for doctor morality, I’ve sat in operating theatres and watched people writhing in absolute agony as they underwent “minor procedures”, such as setting a broken leg, etc, using a sedative called HYPNOVEL, [quote] a solution that can cause sedation (sleepiness), short term amnesia (no memory of events around the time you are given HYPNOVEL solution), and/or anaesthesia (heavy sleep for surgery) depending on the dose you are given. [/quote]
It’s commonly used for it’s amnesiac qualities. I used to argue that “fine, they can’t recall this horrroshow, but they are enduring effective torture right now, no?” The studied answer was always, “yeah, but they won’t remember it, so it doesn’t matter, right?” Shudder!
Sorry, back to your torture discussion. I’ve really not got an opinion on that. Fact is, until they come up with a 100% reliable truth-type serum thingee, whether we like it or not, torture will always be used. I’d prefer it didn’t happen to me and I’d definitely not like to be involved, erh, again.
HG
Interesting though isn’t it that the “invented for use as torture” is such an ingrained urban legend in the junky community. That stuff must be a horror to withdrawl from if even junkies think it is that bad! Anyway drug addiction should be viewed as a medical psychological problem rather than a criminal one IMHO and drugs should be prescribed to anyone enrolled in a withdrawl or maintenance program. Such a move would prevent massive amounts of crime and the suffering that goes with it. Unfortunately we won’t be seeing anything as sensible as that as long as the conservative element sticks to it’s misguided principals on the issue.
Back on topic…
Huang Guan Chen would you would be for or against using methadone withdrawl as a form of “torture” with extreme individuals such as Osama Bin Laden or one of his high level operatives?
It’s like you said, torture will continue so why not bring it out into the light and use it fairly? I suspect it is because, in gritty reality, torture is used mostly against people who do not have the resources to mount a legal challenge or even to make their story public in any significant way. This is the real crime.
I’d be for that – turning terrorism suspects into junkies so we could extract useful intelligence from them.
“Okay, ‘bob’, you’re not getting your next shot until you confirm that Lichtenstein is or is not stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and planning a sneak attack on the United States.”
[color=red]CNN Breaking News[/color]: the Pentagon has confirmed that the country of Lichtenstein has been wiped off the face of the earth in a pre-emptive nuclear attack after U.S. intelligence officials received “slam dunk” evidence that Lichtenstein had become a haven for al Qaida terrorists planning a sneak attack on the U.S.
‘Collateral damage’ has been described as ‘light.’
It’s a radical concept I’ll admit.