The slow slide in the mass mind began with the tube. Fear Factor and Survivor type elimination programming focused on abuse, misery and contrived situations and scenarios to package the conditioning.

We have been sold it as entertainment. A lot of us don't see anything wrong with it. The conditioning and programming is done by professionals. They can sell us anything. They have sold us war and that is the least of what they have conned us into buying.

Ask the person who proposes the 'ticking time bomb' defense: "How exactly do you know that a given person you have in custody has the information you need to stop a ticking time bomb?"

See? You can't. The fallacy of that argument is that there is never a mistake, never an innocent being tortured. Its always someone who "should" be tortured. But the real world doesn't work that way. In reality, we'd be torturing someone we merely suspected of having important info. And if you accept its ok to torture suspected holders of potentially critical information then anyone could be snatched off the street and tortured and it'd be ok.

Also, bottom line, torture is illegal so its efficacy is completely irrelevant anyway.

"Nor can one simply dismiss the philosophical "ticking bomb" debate."

Tell me, if it takes waterboarding someone over 100 times to elicit information from them, what good would that do if a bomb was going off in say 24 hours?

If we torture, then we lose all reason to be fighting terrorists in the first place except "we're bigger than they are".

We despise terrorists because they kill civilians, which we find morally reprehensible. If we become morally reprehensible ourselves, then what's the point? All we've got then is "we have more money and power so we win". If that's our only justification, if we're as morally lacking as the terrorists, then why should we even win?

People in our government admitted that this was torture when other countries engaged in it. Now they've admitted that they did it too, with all the blithering and equivocating defense of it.

Flying airplanes into buildings full of civilians is criminal and morally reprehensible. So is torturing captives. The fact that one occurred doesn't make the other suddenly acceptable.

Dangerous article. When America feels threatened, all they to know is that it works sometimes, and torture will carry the day. Hopefully Kamiya put some effort into researching the misinformation and wasted resources, torture no doubt procures? Hopefully he attended to those who suggest that torture is not moved primarily out of a practical desire to retrieve information, but rather by a sadistic desire to hurt other people, that benefits from the "cover" even some lefties are apparently inclined to offer it.

Gary, you get an "F" for unacceptable imprecision and commission of the fallacy of anecdotalism.

Y'know what would incontrovertibly "work" perfectly in law enforcement more broadly? Simply kill every suspect you arrest (maybe after torturing them). While your statistical "specificity" would be zero, your "sensitivity" would be 100% (but, just of the true positive Bad Guys among your collars).

It IS in fact always wrong. Documentably enumerate for me the "Ticking Time Bomb" incidents quelled via torture. You cannot.

Please also release all the useless information, and better yet, the descriptions of the torture of the people who yielded no information at all? How about the poeple who were picked up and had nothing? Oh and please explain how you decided who had information...and how you differentiated them from people who had no information in your dragnet. Sure there is beneficial information. And a lot of noise as well. What torture does often yield are more people to torture. So why not tell us who you have tortured and why you selected them for torture to begin with.

It does not matter if torture works or not. To a Republican it only matters that someone they hate is being tortured. Because Republicans love the prospect of people they hate being tortured. The alibi is nothing more than that: an alibi.

Enjoying the prospect of torturing others is what it means to be a Republican.

Anyone who believes that I am exaggerating only has to find one single example of someone, anyone, publicly declaring, “I am a republican and the Bush Administration was morally wrong to torture prisoners”. Or anything similar.

Any takers?

I've never heard my solution to the ticking time bomb scenario in any discussion.

If we assume that the ticking time bomb situation is real and occurs, then many people will say there is a moral reason to conduct the torture in that situation because it is the lesser of two evils. I happen to agree with this viewpoint when the premises of the scenario are so artificially constructed. However, just because a good argument for an action can be made within a valid moral framework in a particular constructed case does not mean that doing it, even in that particular case, should be made legal.

For (another artificial) example, if I am starving and have no other method of gaining nourishment, then I can make a strong moral case to justify stealing food: it's the lesser of two evils both personally and globally (usually). Yet, society generally does not carve out an exception in written law for such a case and say, "if you are starving and have no other means of nourishment, then you may steal food without fear of punishment" for myriad reasons. Primarily, because you begin blurring the lines between when stealing is and is not appropriate, which is a slippery slope we do not want to go down. Another example would be illegal but morally justifiable protests. I'm sure we can construct other examples where what I'm saying is even more obviously true.

My point is this:

1) Torture, which includes water boarding, should always be illegal under any and all circumstances.

2) If a ticking time bomb scenario arises, then the would-be torturers can make a moral judgment as individuals and/or a group to purposely break the law to try to get the less evil result.

3) The torturers should then face justice for breaking the law.

4) The law (e.g. - jury and/or judge) will likely mitigate their punishment if they were successful in defusing the ticking time bomb.

5) Even if the punishment is not mitigated at all, then the torturers should gladly accept their punishment comfortable in the knowledge that they saved so many -- they will likely be seen as heroes forever.

6) If the torturers were unsuccessful in their torture, then they deserve the full force of the law slamming down on them for their own evil actions.

7) The President can always unilaterally commute their sentence and/or pardon them for the crime (something I don't like).

Now, given all of the above, if the torturers are still unwilling to purposely break the law to achieve the less evil result, then (a) they are not so sure that torture will achieve the lesser evil, and/or (b) they are cowards who value their personal freedom more dearly than the lives of others. Either way, they have no business breaking the law.