shooter242: So how many of you moral paragons are hot for war in Afghanistan.... Tsk. War mongers and baby killers. Merry frickin Christmas.

Personally, I've tried very hard to try to see your point of view. But crap like this, well, it's just pathetic.

And by the way, this "moral paragon" does not seek a hot war in Afghanistan.

I said earlier to you "Merry Christmas" but I think I should retract that, in good faith.

many have pointed out over time that only a fool (me) would take this fellow seriously. It's very difficult for me to believe that there are people in the world such as shooter242. There's a better world to be had. So, it's very difficult.

N/T

My system of morality doesn't equate children with terrorists . . . you're kidding, right?

No, goddamnit, he's not kidding. What's the problem here? You're trying to find an excuse (as usual, among the smarties that pop in here from time to time) for torture.

It'd be easier if there was absolutely positively no gray area, if they had absolutely *no* possible moral defense for their behavior, but (please humor the double negative) that does not seem to be the case. I personally do not believe that this defense should work for them, or that they applied any sort of cogent moral thinking to their policies -- but that doesn't mean that anyone who does think about this is a soulless moral idiot.

What are you talking about? That paragraph is utter babbling posing as thought.

Get it together and state, directly, that you are willing to find reasons to torture people.

Godammnit, why won't people come clean about this?

MANY PEOPLE WILL CONSIDER MR GREENWALD AND OTHERS LIKE US -- ME INCLUDED -- AS WRONG BECAUSE WE 'WOULD RATHER' LET PEOPLE DIE IN 9/11-LIKE TERRORIST ATTACKS THAN TORTURE A TERRORIST. This is a FALLACY and must be ADDRESSED AND EXPOSED AS SUCH, which neither you nor Mr Greenwald have done.

This isn't a fallacy; it's bullshit. And you can forget trying to persuade the pro-torture mindset that torture is wrong, immoral and wrong. Personally, I'm at the end of my rope trying to get these people to understand what constitutes morality and what comprises right and wrong. Their mothers' should've done that long ago.

Excellent hyperbole huh Professor? Do you really have a PhD? Maybe you should actually follow GG’s work before you start pouting that he had the temerity to challenge your high brow lisping er um strained blather.

That was a fine riposte. I made it to the halfway point of those two profs blathering on about torture before I said "fuck" and turned it off.

I also second your response to Frenchie: agreed many practices in our prisons are tantamount to torture--shocker. One form of barbarism is no excuse for another and doesn't make the whole issue "so complicated".

I just read the Pinter statement.

Excellent, and thanks for posting that.

(1) those who see torture as a legal problem (the 'legalists'); (2) those who see torture as a moral problem (the 'moralists');

To my way of thinking, these are false choices. We need not exclude one to embrace the other. Human laws are the product of human thought. As we mature (as a species) so our laws will (or ought to) as well and that necessarily includes a moral dimension. This is why MLK's response to injustice was eventually understood as being appropriate even though he was condemned by so many at the time.

As for liberal vs. conservative: My point: stressing the above reasons and making them an important part of the open discussion of torture is, I think, necessary to avoid the possibility of having the conservatives' claim that liberals "prefer the rights of terrorists to those of their victims" actually strike a chord.

Conservatives will claim this no matter how cogent the argument against them. Many of them, and certainly their media outlets, are designed to make the "other" seem less than human. And those others aren't just terrorists either; they're you and me.

I'll stop here lest I be accused (by me) of babbling.

on Drezner's blog (I'm such a petty fellow [as well as a liar]!):

"In my bloggingheads comments, I did not justify or dismiss torture, as even Glenn acklowledges (sic). He mistakes my discussion of motives and democratic pressures to “do something” as mitigation."

That’s just pathetic, bub. Come clean here and admit that you’ve been appropriately nailed by a larger brain (Greenwald). And I say this as a large brain.

By this standard maybe Herr Mengele should have been offered a tenured position at Johns Hopkins teaching about what he learned from inside a despots regime.

Beautiful.

I mean, it's an ugly thought, but it's beautifully put.

Also, I second the Pinter comment.

There now. I've seconded you twice in this thread and that's a first for me.