What to do when all those factors ARE present?

How would you know? It seems to me that if you had this knowledge then, by definition, there'd be no need for torture. Put another way, your knowledge would have to be so circumscribed ("I know the general location of the bomb-in-waiting, but not its exact location") as to beggar belief. If you knew the general location, that assumes a modicum of intelligence probably garnered from sources. No? And if you had such sources, wouldn't they provide more specific information? And if they were unable to do so, why do you think this one person-of-interest would possess such information? And if they did, why do you think they'd give it up?

Many of those who've been tortured have said, essentially, "I said whatever I could to stop the pain."

There isn't a lot of operational truth there. Just stop the pain. I really am sorry to see you try to defend the indefensible.

You lose, you get nothing, good day to you sir.

I really like that line.

bamage: see? I told you Derbig and weren't one and the same! He's still my papa-daddy even if he's angry with me.

Stings, doesn't it? To realize that your side is just as full of shit as the other side. I doubt this will be your last such article in the next 4-8 years.

What stings? "Your side"? Which side is that? As for your screen name, aeschylus, I can only conclude that if the original "is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy" (courtesy Wikipedia), you shame his legacy.

Oh!, Good Grief Cannon, not canon. One's for fightin and the other's for teachin.

Very nice. I would nominate you as something or other, but that's your department. Self-nomination, sez I!

This sort of argument we all did in college after Jack Black and a quarter pound of weed.

Man, I wish I'd been your dorm-mate.

adnoto: You know how Glenn and most of the centrist commenters here like to complain about the how media and pundits who were so wrong about the war still hold their information disseminating positions?

I'm not sure what you mean here.

ethics_professor: yes, bolds and italics. And to think I'm working this keyboard with little more than reflexiveness. That means I'm bound to join up with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in my Scientology search for truth and wisdom. Dianetics is the answer to everything (and I'm assuming Dianetics is applicable to those who suffer from high blood sugar).

Meet the New Boss, ... Same as the Old Boss

Good Christ, thank God you came along. Never have I heard such a thing. And I say this with little (well, no) sincerity.

How funny that someone who has to look up Aeschylus on Wikipedia thinks he has the rhetorical chops to lay waste to anyone.

Uh oh. That's chops talk and I love chops (we're talking pork, right?). Do I need to lay waste to you? I don't want to, really.

What stings (I suppose) is the creeping realization on the Left that their side isn't the principled champion of justice that many here would suggest.

Huh? Who said, apart from you, that "their side isn't the principled champion of justice that many here would suggest"?

Again, which side is that? Let me make this plain: the struggle--nay, the fight--against indecency, illegality, and unprincipled behavior is never ending. This isn't a left/right issue no matter how much you'd like to make it so.

I posed 3 hypotheticals and only one of you even had the courage to simply say: No, I would not torture regardless of the consequences. Everyone else quibbles about the implausibility of the scenarios. That is disingenuous. Surely, each of you can imagine a situation where you would do something you otherwise wouldn't to protect yourself or people you love. If you are truly interested in considering the question, then do this: Construct such a hypothetical for yourself, where the people you love are in mortal danger, and where some other person knows but won't say where they are. What would you do?

Was I (or was it heru-ur) who had this courage? If not me, let me say now "no."

As for disingenuity, well, you're the king/queen. You've proposed nothing plausible, nothing approximating reality, just "construct such a hypothetical for yourself."

Really.

Enter this world, where life is uncertain and tenuous, and be ethical. Hypothetically, that is.

What would a nonviolent revolution, in present-day America, look like?

Nicely said. If American consumers (forgive the redundancy) stopped consuming, it'd all fall apart. Yeats, that clever Irish fellow (and don't forget my mother's maiden name was Hooligan), was right: "Things fall apart; the centre will not hold."

I ain't kidding, neither. That would be one heckuva revolution. It's looking increasingly likely, at any rate.

Exactly. The anger - personalized, direct, concrete, and intolerable - is nowhere near approaching the level required for a sufficiently potent and widespread campaign of civil disobedience.

I agree with this. I've often felt people don't act until a critical mass is somehow achieved (and the image I carry in my mind is that of a nuclear weapon). Anything that prevents that from happening prevents fundamental change. Nothing cerebral here, just an opinion.

adnoto (re: PDA): I never said anything about what you want, because I don't know what you want. I don't think any of us knows. You've never said. -- Paul Daniel Ash

Also a lie.

How is this a lie? I don't recall you ever being specific about anything you've proposed. You will correct me if I'm wrong (but please don't agitate me and raise my blood sugar level--I'm Dianetic, after all).