My Senator, Feinstein, is truly one of the biggest phonies in Washington (and I think everyone will agree with me that that is saying something). Feinstein wouldn't piss on her own mother if she was burning to death if she got even the whiff of an idea that doing so might cost her politically with the pro-fire lobby.

Now there's a whole bunch of asshats here in California trying to get her to run for Governor. Schwarzenegger never looked so good.

Sorry. I forgot one thing and it is critical: The President must honestly believe that the torture will extract the necessary information in time to prevent the attacks.

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.

The CIA's no doubt brilliant at exploiting legislators' vulnerabilities.

Priceless.

"With a great, bi-partisan effort"

What, no pragmatism?

but I still can't get over Would you have permitted the torture of one person if it would have prevented the Holocaust? Wbgonne

Got to hand it to you, Woe. As a question it's a beaut. But look at it this way, in our age of godlessness all is permitted! You will be judged only by man and his laws. Forget the impossibility of your hypothetical. The point people have been trying to make is that you can't legalize torture on this basis. But you gotta do what you gotta do, and then you face the consequences. Prevention of the Holocaust would be a great argument in court for your having violated the law. But Woe, would you really rather open the pandora's box of torture legalization than face this inconvenience? Can you imagine the Righteous Gentiles lined up at their memorial glaring at you and asking, "You mean you would have prevented the Holocaust, but only if the act of prevention had no negative consequences for you personally?"

Sure, but going through hundreds of comments on dozens of pages is enough of a chore without a bunch of GoodCelery!'s inane ramblings (which I'm sure is supposed to be poetic or edgy or whatever, and would certainly fit in nicely elsewhere).

And that's the last I comment on this, because this too is unnecessary noise, but I didn't see anywhere else to bring it up.

You asked for plausible hypotheticals:

1. Poor and hungry/I steal money to buy food for myself and loved ones.

2. A man is beating a loved one/I hit him with a two by four.

3. An accident is happening to my right on the highway/I veer into the car next to me to avoid it, saving my life while risking that of another.

I've seen stuff like this happen, and even been party to one or two events. They are plausible hypotheticals--immediate action, immediate reaction in real world scenarios THAT HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN EMPIRICALLY OBSERVED. Here would be your version:

1. Poor and hungry/I torture someone based on the assumption that torturing will bring me food.

I'm no philosophy major, but that seems to be the basics of what's going on in this discussion.

is that I would expect to face legal repercussions for my actions. I wouldn't expect the law to legalize hitting people with two by fours based on the fact that it is sometimes required for defense of loved ones.

"In any case, have a care; your karma may end up sending you to hell or even Gehenna."-- omooex

I've already been to Gahanna and it's not too awfully bad except for the noise from the airport on a still night. Well, that and Pedinska's snoring.

The 'roll back' on torture standards to protect Bush and Co. from prosecution? The terrorist win by saying "look at what we made them do to themselves and their so called 'laws'".

The house of lords is merely the house of deals.

Feinstein profited greatly from this war (husband is defense contractor) and may be more complicit than is being revealed as she may owe a lot of 'favors' to CIA buddies. This is not an issue to be compromised about. I thought by this election it would mean the end of torture...and Iraq war...period.

Very suspicious that Feinstein would even suggest compromising on torture standards. Very suspicious indeed.

What if we had captured Mohammed Atta in Logan Airport before the hijacked planes flew, that we suspected from our intelligence there was an imminent plot that would cause thousands of casualties. We knew that Atta was deeply involved and knowledgeable and that's why we arrested him. But he wouldn't talk. What should the U.S. president do? What would you do if you were the President?,

Torturing him would be extremely unlikely to produce any information from him at all, and even less likely to produce useful or accurate information. To rely on anything said by him, especially through torture, is more likely to be counterproductive and actually aid them in the attack by making you chase down false leads. One more time: the terrorist attack thwarter through torture, a.k.a. Jack Bauer, is a TV fallacy.

How did we know he was deeply involved? Perhaps the methods used to obtain that information are the methods to be used to try and prevent the imminent attack.