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Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

We still have time to mess this up!

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2012 / My Fellow Americans…

My Fellow Americans…

by Anne Laurie|  November 13, 20116:22 pm| 110 Comments

This post is in: Election 2012, Republican Venality, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue

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… and yours, per Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly:

That there’s still even “debate” over whether the United States should engage in torture is a national embarrassment, and the way it was addressed in last night’s debate wasn’t exactly encouraging….
__
But in light of the Cain and Bachmann responses, it’s worth keeping a couple of things in mind. First, in GOP circles, support for torture remains painfully strong, even now. Post-Cheney, it’s become practically a party norm to support torture techniques that America used to consider unthinkable. Though Rick Santorum didn’t comment on this last night, it was just this summer when he said John McCain “doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works,” because the former prisoner of war opposes torture.
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And second, Republican debate audiences continue to be a legitimate story in their own right. Over the last few months, we’ve seen GOP audiences cheer the execution of 234 people, cheer letting the insured die, boo an American soldier who happens to be gay, and now applaud torture.
__
There’s a deep strain of ugliness in Republican politics in 2011, and it appears to be getting worse.

__

Further, Charlie Pierce at Esquire on the “Wal-Mart Torquemadas“:

Oh, my goodness, they do love their waterboarding, all of them except Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman… Rick Santorum, when he’s not out there killing Iranian nuclear scientists, as well as their neighbors’ cats and whomever’s trimming their hedges that day, is fine with it, too, and for many of the same philological reasons that so appeal to Herman. La Bachmann is busy pricing designer thumbscrews and also is busy going completely off her admittedly limited rails and deep, deep into the outer bananasphere.
__
“If I were president, I would be willing to use waterboarding… [President Obama] is letting the ACLU run the CIA.”…
__
Paul and Huntsman came next, with their rationality and their pestery-pestering about what’s against the law and so forth. However, Bachmann kept yipping away in the background because she hadn’t yet unburdened herself of all of her warm Christian devotion — two millenia ago, she’d have been wearing an “I (Heart) Pilate” button — to the sacred task of drowning people…
__
Even Bachmann fell short of our boy, Goodhair, though. Somehow, as though most of them already hadn’t revealed themselves to be abject moral algae on the subject, it came up again. Again, Ron Paul voiced an objection, which gave Perry an opportunity to leap in with both feet. Alas for him, neither of them was in his mouth this time. He was clear, precise, and totally batshit:
__
“Waterboarding is not torture… and I’ll be for it until the day I die.”
__
This is precisely, and in every respect, the position taken by several Japanese military officers in 1945. They felt exactly the same way, which is why we fucking executed them.

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Reader Interactions

110Comments

  1. 1.

    Chuck Butcher

    November 13, 2011 at 6:30 pm

    You would think the words, executed Japanese for waterboarding, would be about it for the discussion…

  2. 2.

    Chuck Butcher

    November 13, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    First twice? I have too much time on my hands…

    Skyrim won’t arrive for awhile yet…

  3. 3.

    cathyx

    November 13, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    Don’t leave out the epic rant by Bachmann about China. It’s too good not to post.
    Michele Bachmann: … The Great Society has not worked, and it’s put us into the modern welfare state. If you look at China, they don’t have food stamps. If you look at China, they’re in a very different situ– they save for their own retirement security. They don’t have to pay FDC. They don’t have the modern welfare state. And China’s growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with The Great Society, and they’d be gone.

    ETA: and here’s Pierce’s reply to it:
    And, somewhere in a hut in Shandong province, a man comes home from a 16-hour day at the Happy Carcinogens Manufacturing Plant, stirs 27 grains of rice into a pot, garnishes it with what’s left of his sandal, and thinks to himself, “Goddamn glad we don’t have Head Start here. Freedom!.”)

  4. 4.

    Delia

    November 13, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    This is precisely, and in every respect, the position taken by several Japanese military officers in 1945. They felt exactly the same way, which is why we fucking executed them.

    So they were, in fact, for it until the day they died. Something for our string of idiots to ponder. Also.

  5. 5.

    Gex

    November 13, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    @cathyx: Almost sounds like a call for Communism.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    November 13, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    @cathyx: The amount of historical and factual fail in that statement could fill a book.

  7. 7.

    cathyx

    November 13, 2011 at 6:38 pm

    Don’t we all wish we had it as good as the Chinese.

  8. 8.

    PeakVT

    November 13, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    [President Obama] is letting the ACLU run the CIA.

    That’s right, because Petraeus was the Général d’armée de l’ACLU before heading the CIA. Don’t let the librul media tell you otherwise.

  9. 9.

    MikeBoyScout

    November 13, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    Torture? You want to talk about torture?

    Watching the Republican Clown Car Parade is no enhanced political discussion. It is clearly torture!

  10. 10.

    cmorenc

    November 13, 2011 at 6:43 pm

    @Annie Laurie (quoting Steve Benen):

    First, in GOP circles, support for torture remains painfully strong

    This is a wonderful start toward creating a collection of “GOP Tom Swifties” (we will, however, be lenient about the usual format for Swifties that the ditty end in an -ly form of adjective).

  11. 11.

    MikeBoyScout

    November 13, 2011 at 6:49 pm

    pssst. Don’t tell La Bachmann that China has forced abortion.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    November 13, 2011 at 6:55 pm

    “Waterboarding is not torture… and I’ll be for it until the day I die.”

    Speed the day.

  13. 13.

    Judas Escargot

    November 13, 2011 at 6:55 pm

    I’m just watching last night’s debate now on DVR.

    I guess Romney really is going to seriously run on a ‘bomb Iran’ platform: Not sure which adviser told him that tack was a winner. Most normal people are sick to death of war.

    Unless, of course, the fix is in, and he knows it and we don’t.

    Can’t wait for the torture questions. GOP mouthbreathers lurve themselves some torture.

  14. 14.

    cathyx

    November 13, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    @MikeBoyScout: Oh, that’s good.

  15. 15.

    Loneoak

    November 13, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    Speaking of the police state, check out the armed response to Occupy Chapel Hill taking over a car dealership that had been vacant for a decade. This bullshit with militarized police response has got to end.

  16. 16.

    Karen

    November 13, 2011 at 6:59 pm

    If a GOPper says to me “Bomb Iran” or “We must go to war with Iran to stop them from having the nukes” my reply will be the following:

    How do we intend to do that, what troops do you suggest we should do that with? Or are you saying we should reinstate the draft?

    Then let’s see how they spin it.

  17. 17.

    smintheus

    November 13, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    If waterboarding doesn’t constitute torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, then it can also be applied to US citizens in prison – or, simply, in custody being interrogated…for any crime however trivial.

    Also, as others have pointed out many times, when the US waterboards prisoners it has no grounds for objecting if American troops taken captive are treated the same way.

  18. 18.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    November 13, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    .
    .
    Fortunately, there is an absolute, 100 percent, can’t possibly happen, balloonbagger guarantee that President Obama’s black sites and extraordinary rendition partners’ compounds around the world, hidden from such hostile organizations as the International Red Cross, do not engage in torture – unlike his villainous predecessor’s black sites and extraordinary rendition partners’ compounds.
    .
    .

  19. 19.

    Egg Berry

    November 13, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    First, in GOP circles, support for torture remains painfully strong, even now. Post-Cheney, it’s become practically a party norm to support torture techniques that America used to consider unthinkable.

    Part of the reason it is the norm is that Liz Cheney, John Yoo, Mark Thiessen, etc. have made it their personal missions to make that talking point into reality. And I do not understand the love for Darth Cheney, other than it pisses off liberals.

  20. 20.

    Judas Escargot

    November 13, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    @smintheus:

    If waterboarding doesn’t constitute torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, then it can also be applied to US citizens in prison – or, simply, in custody being interrogated…for any crime however trivial.

    Half of these GOP mouthbreathers would be just fine with this outcome.

  21. 21.

    Karen

    November 13, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    @Uncle Clarence Thomas:

    No matter what topic it is you always find a way to either blame Obama for it or talk about how Obama is evil incarnate and if he really cared about America, he’d either resign and go on his knees before the REAL Democrats like you and beg your forgiveness. Or he’d do the honorable thing, grab a sword and commit Hari Kari for the good of the country.

    So everything that’s horrible or evil or bad in the world has to do with Obama and it’s Obama’s fault.

    Hurricane Irene was Obama’s fault.
    So was the earthquake in Virginia.
    Penn State? Obama’s fault. After all, you already IMPLIED that.
    And those women Herman Cain assaulted? Obama’s fault.
    My cousin’s miscarriage was Obama’s fault too.
    Those kids were molested by Catholic Priests? Obama’s fault.
    Cancer is Obama’s fault too.

    Please, enlighten me sensei, is there anything hellish in the world that ISN’T Obama’s fault?

    It must be great to be you because all you have to do is say that Obama should be struck down by G-d and the world will be sunshine, light and rainbows.

  22. 22.

    Raven

    November 13, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    @Karen: It just wants you to talk to it. It wins when you do.

  23. 23.

    Gex

    November 13, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    @Judas Escargot: He needs to get two of the three rails of the GOP. He’s got the corporate money. He’s sucking up to the MIC money. The Jesus money doesn’t like Mormons.

  24. 24.

    smintheus

    November 13, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    @Judas Escargot:

    Half of these GOP mouthbreathers would be just fine with this outcome.

    …until their next DUI arrest.

  25. 25.

    Billy Rae Valentine

    November 13, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    i have to be honest, i don’t see the consistency in being anti-waterboarding but being totally cool with drone attacks on american citizens without even charging them with a crime. or drone attacks in general that are proven to kill innocent people in middle eastern countries. seems kinda IOKIYAD.

    gotta get it off my chest. now if someone can explain, though it may be an old argument for you, i’d appreciate it.

  26. 26.

    smintheus

    November 13, 2011 at 7:28 pm

    @Billy Rae Valentine: I have a few spare bales of straw in the barn, in case you’re running short.

  27. 27.

    Roger Moore

    November 13, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    @Judas Escargot:

    Half of these GOP mouthbreathers would be just fine with are eagerly awaiting this outcome.

    FTFY.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    November 13, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    @Billy Rae Valentine:

    Well, you could start with the difference between having total physical control over a person — such as holding them in a prison — and attacking a person who is wandering around free. You have a specific moral responsibility towards prisoners that does not exist towards people who are not under your control. It’s the difference between shooting the raccoon that’s raiding your garbage can and bringing the animal into your house, caging it, and beating it to death over the course of a week until it painfully dies of its injuries.

  29. 29.

    Scott

    November 13, 2011 at 7:35 pm

    Really? It’s basic combat 101 philosophy that what is legit for a battle field is different than what is legit for treatment of prisoners.

  30. 30.

    Ruckus

    November 13, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    @Billy Rae Valentine:
    Who said I’m cool with drone attacks?

  31. 31.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    @Billy Rae Valentine: I do not see the consistency either, and I am not totally cool with it, though my tax dollars pay for it.

    I think that the Obama administration has done serious harm by not having at least investigations into war crimes by previous administrations, at least on torture. IANAL, but is seems like it has established a precedent, and to some extent his actions have codified some practices that will make it easier for future administrations to transgress further.

    However, I am not going to sit here like some self satisfied self righteous purer than thou prig, and not criticize the GOPper when they advocate for immoral and counterproductive policies just because I disapprove of how Obama has handled civil liberties and laws of war issues.

    Becuase, first off, if one was very very attentive, one would have noted that it was a GOP primary debate, and Obama was not up there night. I will certainly criticize Obama during the general election campaign when he tries to justify his decisions.

    And because, second, things would be far worse under a GOP administration, and to put it very politely, too politely, I question anyone’s judgment who thinks otherwise. They are fools, is another too polite way to put it.

  32. 32.

    eemom

    November 13, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    just posted this on the earlier thread, but I wanted to make sure you saw it — an actual expert agrees with what you’ve been saying about McQueary.

  33. 33.

    kindness

    November 13, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    Even when progressives are right they still have to remember they are the red headed step child in politics. Esteemed Village Elders will naturally shy away from the torture debate just because liberals feel it is wrong. The fact that this knee jerk response is so open and pronounced, especially with respect to the subject of whether or not torture is a moral thing should be shocking but sadly it is normal.

    Such is the life of reasonable liberals.

  34. 34.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    Sorry folks, I am not buying the big differences between torture as a crime and lawless execution.

    Being able to monitor your travels, and laying a bomb on you that blows you to smithereens is pretty total control too.

    And being killed, or horribly and agonizingly maimed because the US government thinks that there is a ‘bad guy’ staying a few doors down the street is just as serious a violation of morality, and in some cases, the law, as torture.

    But, when the GOOpers start propagandizing for evil, and to add insult to injury, evil that makes us less safe, I will bash them, and any qualms about what the Obama administration is doing can be argued later.

    At this rate, in the next GOPper debate, they will show that pic TL posted last night and ask if we should have people dismembered by horses in public. To shouts of HELL YEAH from the crowd, and the vile goofs up there will all rush to support the idea.

  35. 35.

    bin Lurkin'

    November 13, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    Watching the debates and listening to the audience does it really and truly surprise anyone that the cover-up at Penn State went down the way it did?

    This is the mentality of a solid quarter of the population, they have no trouble finding each other because most of them are big mouthed about their political opinions. They don’t even notice cognitive dissonance that would poleaxe a charging rhino.

    In my mind this is exactly the kind of people that were running Penn State.

  36. 36.

    Caz

    November 13, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    Here’s a good way to tell if something is torture of not: if someone would voluntarily try it (someone normal, not a masochist), it’s not torture. At a party once, a few of us tried waterboarding. It wasn’t fun, but afterwards we were no worse for wear.

    No one is going to voluntarily try electrocution, maiming, burning skin, pulling out fingernails with pliers, etc.

    Some things are torture; some things are humiliating or unpleasant.

    It’s not hard to see the difference.

    Also, consider this hypothetical: we have captured a terrorist who knows the location of a nuke in a major U.S. city which is programmed to go off in 12 hours. Would you engage in waterboarding during interrogation in order to find out the location, or forego that and let a U.S. city go up in a mushroom cloud? How would you handle this interrogation, assuming the terrorist is not going to cooperate (which is a fair assumption)?

  37. 37.

    bin Lurkin'

    November 13, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    @Caz: When I was a kid we had generator out of an old war surplus field telephone, we had attached leads to the generator that had big nuts on the end. One of our favorite games was to see who could hold the nuts to the highest rpm (voltage) as someone gradually spun the crank faster and faster.

  38. 38.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 13, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    I vote we let everyone who thinks waterboarding is harmless to partake of it and share their views. Yoo, Bybee, Thiessen, etc., come on down. I’d even do PPV for that shit.

  39. 39.

    Raven

    November 13, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    @bin Lurkin’: Disneyland used to have an arcade that had a machine that you grabbed two handles and a current ran though you. There was a big dial on it that showed how much you could take.

  40. 40.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    @Caz: Yes, Caz, I do consider your scenario a ‘hypothetical’. I go even further, and add ‘counterfactual’ as well.

    Look, in real life, you never know whether the ‘bad guy’ knows. And second, you are never sure that you have the right ‘bad guy’.

    And third, did it not ever occur to you that every interrogation technique is predicated on the fat that if you have the guilty person, or a bad guy with the knowledge, that they are not inclined to cooperate? Aside from the morality of it, there are other techniques that are quicker and more effective than torture.

    You dingbat, you assume that you have some safe and sane torture technique that will work within 12 hours. What if it doesn’t? Bring in some relatives and do the same on them. Hey, all sorts of rape can be done without leaving marks. Would that be the next step?

    Torture advocates make the same tired, absurd and asinine arguments, the same patently untrue assertions, the same begging the question assumptions over and over again. It is like some kind of therapy for them, I guess.

  41. 41.

    Raven

    November 13, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    @Caz: Gee, what and interesting scenario. How in the world did you ever come up with it? moron

  42. 42.

    Caz

    November 13, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    bin Lurkin’, you probably stopped before it became torturous, didn’t you? You really think you turned it up as high as they during torture? Of course not. Trying something to a lesser degree is not the same as trying something. It’s like comparing drowning someone to waterboarding someone. Yeah, they both involve water going in your nose, but they aren’t the same thing. One results in death, the other results in nothing lasting. Your little kiddie game with the electricity was not anywhere near the degree that is used during electricity torture. You see that, right? I’ve also tried holding my hand over a candle until it hurt, but I wouldn’t say I’ve voluntarily tried skin burning torture techniques.

  43. 43.

    Caz

    November 13, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    Basically, you stopped before it became torture.

    Why is this so hard for you liberals to understand?

    And how about you address my hypothetical, bin Lurkin’?

  44. 44.

    Jeffro

    November 13, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    I died and went to heaven reading this from Pierce (about Bachman)

    I swear, she’s still out on the sidewalk right now, buttonholing winos on the topic. The last time I heard a woman talk that enthusiastically about torture, it cost me eight bucks for a Halloween midnight show in a movie theater on the north side of Milwaukee. Jesus Mary, it’s Ilsa, She-Wolf of the Bean Salads.

  45. 45.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 13, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    @Caz:

    One results in death, the other results in nothing lasting.

    Put your money where your mouth is, asshole.

  46. 46.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    November 13, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    @Judas Escargot: They would be fine as long as a Repuglican is in charge. Remember when George W Bush was running the country you never hear the 2nd Amendment Gun Nuts wailing about loss of rights via the Fourth Amendment or the Sixth Amendments (see Padilla Jose) especially the Eighth Amendment (See again Padilla Jose). Only now with a Kenyan Solshoolist mooslin coommie, the teatard Gun Owners of America suddenly loves him some konstitushon. (of course applied to White Heterosexual Male Christians)

  47. 47.

    Raven

    November 13, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    This is a penny arcade shocking machine from around 1904. “Electricity Is Life”, made by the Mills Novelty Co. You drop in a nickel, grab both handles and slowly turn the handle on the right. As you rotate the handle, an electric shock is delivered to the handles. The voltage starts out low, but increases as you crank the handle. I can only turn it about half way before I have to let go (ouch). I repaired this machine for a customer in Jan. 2007. It’s powered by a single 1.5V #6 dry cell battery. The mechanism is very ingenious. The coin (a nickel) actually closes the electrical circuit and allows current to flow. The battery voltage is stepped up to a shocking potential (pun intended) by a “step-up transformer,” of which the secondary winding is connected to the handles. The transformer is the skinny rod, which is vertically mounted in the center of the machine, as seen in this picture. There is a brass sleeve that covers the transformer shaft. As you rotate the handle, this sleeve will slide down the shaft and cause the following to occur: At the start of the game when the handle is up-right, the brass sleeve is covering the transformer windings and shunting the magnetic field. Therefore, the output voltage is low. But as the handle is rotated, the sleeve will move down the shaft and uncover the transformer, which allows the magnetic field to grow, which in turn delivers more “life giving electrical stimulus” (IE: a good old fashion zap) to the person willing to deposit his nickel and hold on….

  48. 48.

    feebog

    November 13, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    @ Caz:

    Pulling out the script from the third year of 24 eh? Aside from the fact that the scenario is completely absurd, waterboarding would be about the least effective method of gaining information imaginable. Please remember that Mohammed Sheik Kalid was waterboarded ALMOST TWO HUNDRED TIMES. And he gave up little or not useful information. Hell, forget waterboarding, start cutting off ifngers and toes with tin snips. Or take a blow torch to the genitals. I mean if we are going to torture, lets get with it.

  49. 49.

    Raven

    November 13, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    @Caz: Take that weak bullshit somewhere else.

  50. 50.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    November 13, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    @Caz: At a party once, a few of us tried waterboarding. It wasn’t fun, but afterwards we were no worse for wear.

    Yeah, and just like you, prisoners get to quit it whenever they want.

  51. 51.

    cleek

    November 13, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    @Caz:
    this is a spoof, right?

  52. 52.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    Hey, kids I have this new cool ‘leaves no mark’ torture, that we can add to our torture arsenal!

    I remembered it last night, after the GOP debate.

    It is safer than waterboarding, can last for hours and hours and leaves no marks.

    I think was an old Errol Flynn movie, and he was captured in some derring do by evile ruthless Inscrutable Orientals. And they had come up with ‘bone etching’. That’s right, bone etching.

    See, you get these really long flexible extremely thin needles and you poke through the flesh and you poke around the bones and through the nerves.

    You can do that for days! Yipee!

    But no problem, our man Errol, dude, was he a hero, or what? They etched his hero bones for like all night and the next day, and he never broke. You can’t beat that Errol.

    So, I think the US needs an arsenal of markless tortures, each one designed to exploit some legalistic loophole, I mean, rigorously examined and refined to be enhanced interrogation, not torture.

  53. 53.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 13, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    @Caz:

    And how about you address my hypothetical, bin Lurkin’?

    The problem with hypotheticals is their nature. Let’s suppose that our arrested terrist was really intent on what they were doing – what’s to stop them giving a false positive? Or saying “Jesus Saves”” and dying in the torture?

  54. 54.

    Batocchio

    November 13, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    Caz was thoroughly fact-checked and debunked in the previous torture thread, but here Caz is, spouting the same BS again. What a shock.

  55. 55.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    November 13, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    @Caz: How about this, lets kidnap a subject without warning, bundled and trussed thrown into a back of truck or in a trunk of a car driven around for a couple of hours. Then dragged to a room, tied down, then have a hose put in his mouth then have a gallon of water poured down the throat and then lets see if that is torture. I believe it was Jesse Ventura who described that scenario to Sean Hannity, when Hannity defended torture. Of course the radio show host Mancow actually did volunteer and this was just mild trial run and could not last five seconds.

  56. 56.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    Hey, Caz, this is kind of off topic from the morality issue, but there is the little detail that torture does not work as well or as quickly as other techniques.

    Google Ali H. Soufan and read some of his work. He was the guy who got info in twenty minutes by trickery, psychological manipulation, and other old fashioned interrogation techniques.

    If there is ever a ticking time bomb, and I am one of the lesser people unwittingly in the kill zone, I will hope against hope that they go to work with the captured bad guy with an Ali Soufan, not some stupid torture chamber. If an Ali Soufan is working on it, I have a good chance of surviving, otherwise I do not.

  57. 57.

    bin Lurkin'

    November 13, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    @Caz:

    bin Lurkin’, you probably stopped before it became torturous, didn’t you? You really think you turned it up as high as they during torture? Of course not

    OK, you’re a performance artist, I get it.

    You did EXACTLY the same thing with your “waterboarding experiment”, stopped when it got too much for you.

    Give me half an hour and I could have you confessing to the Lindbergh kidnapping and never leave a fucking mark on you.

  58. 58.

    Caz

    November 13, 2011 at 8:13 pm

    It’s very telling that none of you will address my hypothetical.

    You should introspectively consider why you won’t respond to it. We all know it has nothing to do with how realistic or not the hypothetical is (although I would posit that it is very realistic, and you can substitute “IED” or other destructive device designed to kill Americans for “Nuke” and you have a factual scenario that occurs routinely).

    Calling me names just shows how weak your position is on this issue. Clearly, some of you haven’t really thought through this issue with enough depth to reach a reasonable, rational conclusion.

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    November 13, 2011 at 8:13 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Well, you could start with the difference between having total physical control over a person—such as holding them in a prison—and attacking a person who is wandering around free.

    And I think you can make a further distinction based on where they’re wandering. If somebody is within plausible reach of law enforcement- living in the US or in a country with a good history of catching and extraditing criminals to the US, for example- then it’s obvious wrong to send the military after them. But if they’re somewhere that law enforcement can’t reach- a country that will deny extradition or a lawless area- it’s hard to see how we could take a law enforcement approach, and using the military may be the only available option. IOW, how were we supposed to go after bin Laden or al-Awlaki other than with the military?

  60. 60.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 8:14 pm

    @Caz: I wouldn’t have bothered writing the last comment if I had seen that piece of work.

    I guess Caz is so in your face ridiculous, that the idea that it is another DougJ spoof just doesn’t occur right away.

    But the Dougger always goes too far into arrant nincompoopery and gives the game away.

    Type away Caz, DougJ can whip up some good outrageous laffs from time to time.

  61. 61.

    Gin & Tonic

    November 13, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    @Caz: You tried this last night. The fundamental difference is that in your scenario, when you said “OK, stop” they did. The torture comes in not knowing whether it will stop.

    In other words, your parlor trick was just a parlor trick, nothing more, which proves nothing.

  62. 62.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    @Caz: Lay off the sauce, DougJ, I sense alcohol poisoning is not far away.

    Meanwhile I will go take a time out and seriously consider why I refuse to answer to the details of purportedly realistic hypothetical scenarios that will always be counterfactual.

    Why will I not spend time pondering over what I would do in absurd scenarios with impossible stipulations.

    Does it I do not care about the children? But, what about the children?

    Edit: might be a long time out, I’m working on square circle scenarios. What does it say about me that I have not thought through all the possible square circle scenarios in minute detail?

  63. 63.

    cleek

    November 13, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    troll is great success.

  64. 64.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    @cleek: The troll is so effing idiotic, I think it must be another DougJ troll. Srsly.

  65. 65.

    Jebediah

    November 13, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    @Batocchio:
    Except he added the “we did it at a party” bit. Which is of course a bunch of bullshit too, as others have pointed out. If it isn’t totally made up – they could stop whenever they wanted. I am also willing to bet that none of them are trained to do it “right” if they were, they wouldn’t have thought it a fun party game.
    Hey Cazzhole – to second arguingwithsignposts @44 – put your money where your mouth is. Submit to waterboarding by someone who knows how to do it for real, and who agrees only that he or she will stop when they feel like it – not when you do. As was pointed out to you yesterday, the uncertainty of how much more is coming might change your mind.
    Agree to this or fuck off and stop polluting these threads with your weak, dribbley shit.

  66. 66.

    Roxsie

    November 13, 2011 at 8:25 pm

    What kind of freak goes to a waterboarding party.

  67. 67.

    Jebediah

    November 13, 2011 at 8:26 pm

    @Caz:
    Your hypothetical is weak, weak bullshit, as you must know. If the torturer doesn’t already know the answer they are trying to get, your scenario falls apart.
    At the risk of repeating myself, fuck off.

  68. 68.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 8:28 pm

    I read someplace that a hot poker up the ass leaves no marks, and is effective. As a murder method, it has been termed ‘a braver way’, so it can’t immoral, it is ‘brave’, see?

    It has appeared in great literature, so it can’t be bad.

  69. 69.

    bin Lurkin'

    November 13, 2011 at 8:28 pm

    Oh BTW, re the title, one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, Jack Lemmon and James Garner played off each other in an amazing comedy tour de force.

  70. 70.

    Dee Loralei

    November 13, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    Saw this video on twitter. Loved the song. Hawaiian singer sang it at the Obama APEC Luau last night. HA! He took it to the 1%!

    Makana

    Perfect song about who and why Occupy

  71. 71.

    RossInDetroit

    November 13, 2011 at 8:37 pm

    @Raven:

    Since transformers only work on AC there must have been a vibrator device in the circuit to convert the DC to a varying voltage. But I get what you’re saying. A primitive stepup autoformer.
    I’m elbows deep in an old tube receiver on the bench at the moment. 475VDC in there and I unplug the phone before I power it up to make tests. At that voltage if you make a mistake and you’re alone you’ll be horizontal and room temp before anyone knows.

  72. 72.

    smintheus

    November 13, 2011 at 8:48 pm

    @jl: Speaking of children, some of the kids I grew up with found by experimentation that torturing small animals is always highly effective.

  73. 73.

    Billy Rae Valentine

    November 13, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    @smintheus:

    i don’t know how much more polite i could have been, yet you feel the need to be a wittty smart-ass instead of just not responding or responding politely in return. i infer from your comment that i am “erecting a straw-man”.

    but the truth is i read this blog every day and have seen many people who are okay with the drone attacks yet find waterboarding immoral. so i asked about it. i’m not trying to destroy straw men, dude. because i’m not trying to win an argument! i don’t have an agenda at all. i’m just asking questions of people whose opinions i respect. jesus. thanks for nothing.

  74. 74.

    Villago Delenda Est

    November 13, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    @Caz:

    We’ve already established that your greatest regret in life was being born 50 years too late to be Amon Goth’s aide de camp.

    So you can shut the fuck up now.

  75. 75.

    Judas Escargot

    November 13, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    @Caz:

    At a party once, a few of us tried waterboarding.

    Was there a cover charge?

  76. 76.

    Billy Rae Valentine

    November 13, 2011 at 9:05 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    i guess i’m saying i’m not cool with shooting the raccoon at my garbage can, either. not that they are the same but that both are hard to tolerate morally.

    but i find your analogy and general point reasonable. for me, with al-awaki, i told myself that he was essentially an enemy combatant, just not one who was physically in the act of war WHEN we murdered him. and so i was ok with it. but not totally ok with it. seems like i’d be scared as heck with Bush having that power; i happen to trust the current president. but that doesn’t really resolve the general issue for me. the idea of benevolent kings and all that, you know?

    to me America has to strive to have a moral high ground or else all else is compromised. so waterboarding is bad and hurts our credibility, but so does killing innocent afghans with drone attack mistakes, as unavoidable as collateral damage may be in war. and my point is that i come to this blog a lot and see a lot of people morally indignant over one thing that republicans favor, but totally fine morally with something else that seems morally difficult to defend. in truth, though, it’s not necessarily the same people. it’s just a general opinion i see voiced.

  77. 77.

    Billy Rae Valentine

    November 13, 2011 at 9:07 pm

    @Ruckus:

    not me.

  78. 78.

    honus

    November 13, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    @Caz: “Basically, you stopped before it became torture.”
    Just like you and your friends getting drunk and waterboarding each other.

  79. 79.

    smintheus

    November 13, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    @Billy Rae Valentine:

    seems kinda IOKIYAD

    i’m just asking questions of people whose opinions i respect.

    Who exactly is “totally cool with drone attacks on american citizens without even charging them with a crime. or drone attacks in general that are proven to kill innocent people in middle eastern countries”?

  80. 80.

    Billy Rae Valentine

    November 13, 2011 at 9:10 pm

    @jl:

    thanks for your response. i understood and had no issues with anything you said. pretty much feel the same way.

  81. 81.

    The Other Chuck

    November 13, 2011 at 9:12 pm

    Caz: You need to be fucking tortured by professionals. You need to fucking SUFFER. Because people like you are actually running the country and need to learn a hard lesson.

  82. 82.

    trollhattan

    November 13, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    I’ll give the last word on waterboarding to the philosopher, Ventura:

    KING: You were a Navy SEAL.
    __
    JESSE VENTURA: That’s right. I was water boarded, so I know — at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence — every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.
    __
    KING: What was it like?
    __
    VENTURA: It’s drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you — I’ll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

    What is wrong with Republicans?

  83. 83.

    smintheus

    November 13, 2011 at 9:21 pm

    @The Other Chuck: Nobody deserves to be tortured.

  84. 84.

    Chris

    November 13, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    There’s a deep strain of ugliness in Republican politics in 2011, and it appears to be getting worse.

    It’s been getting worse for forty years, and it’ll continue for at least the foreseeable future.

    But the “strain of ugliness” was really inevitable. When you’ve got a party owned lock stock and barrel by the richest and most powerful few people in society and whose mandate isn’t just to serve them but to fleece everyone else, you can hardly on a “normal” platform promising people good things – you need to keep appealing to the lowest in human nature, things like racism, war hysteria, and other sadistic impulses of the kind that lead people to support torture. The current Republican base is what you get when you spend forty years specifically appealing to the worst of the worst.

    Onto the comments section…

  85. 85.

    Billy Rae Valentine

    November 13, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    @smintheus:

    there were plenty of people cool with al-alwaki’s death in this thread: https://balloon-juice.com/2011/09/30/anwar-al-awlaki-dead/

    in general, the lack of coverage here i’ve seen over drone attacks to me is acquiescence. not that there have never been posts decrying these things, mind you. i just saw some in the archives. i just saw a post days ago on the “horrible” mainstream blog huffpost about a young boy killed by a drone strike. it bothered me to hear about the extent to which this unaccountable CIA program is operating. but i don’t hear a lot about that here, and i check this site every day, all day. so we get up in arms about what republicans advocate that we think is immoral, not so much when it’s “our team”. that’s my gut feeling. though i acknowledge that this thread is not about “our team” it’s about the most recent debate. i also acknowledge that it is not necessarily the same people loving one immoral thing and hating a second; in other words i’m not calling any individuals hypocrites (if i haven’t made that clear).

  86. 86.

    redheadedfemme

    November 13, 2011 at 9:32 pm

    @Caz: I hate hate hate these ridiculous hypotheticals. You’re asking something that you know bloody well is never going to happen, outside of the “24” set.

    It’s the same kind of question as, “Aren’t you glad your mother didn’t abort you?” Well no, I don’t give a crap, because if she had, I wouldn’t be around to discuss such a stupid thing.

    But to answer your question: NO. Even in that far-fetched impossible fever-dream circumstance, I would not torture.

  87. 87.

    sb

    November 13, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    Anne, if any BJ folk give you shit for quoting Pierce as often as you do, tell said folk to fuck the hell off.

    Wal Mart Torquemadas. Priceless.

  88. 88.

    Ruckus

    November 13, 2011 at 9:46 pm

    @Billy Rae Valentine:
    seems kinda IOKIYAD

    Sure sounds like it to me. But maybe I’m just reading too much into your comment.

  89. 89.

    sb

    November 13, 2011 at 9:51 pm

    @Caz:

    Clearly, some of you haven’t really thought through this issue with enough depth to reach a reasonable, rational conclusion.

    Well, sure, because your hypothetical is so reasonable and rational. But okay, I’ll play. In your hypothetical–which I might add would probably never, ever happen–I’d seriously consider torturing the motherfucker. If my kid were buried alive and the sonofabitch who buried him was in front of me, I’d do anything necessary to get my son out of the hole. Satisfied?

    Of course your not. Because now you’ll use the wingnut line of argument of saying, “See? See?? You are pro-torture!” Which is bullshit but since you probably don’t get why, I’ll tell you–in the most extreme conditions, there are no moral absolutes. And while you and yours were cheering on the torture of brown people for the sake of “we’re gonna die, die, DIE!” there were those of us who pointed out the obvious–it wasn’t working. It was never going to work. And it hasn’t worked.

    I’m anti-death penalty. I didn’t shed a tear when Timothy McVeigh died and I don’t think that makes me a hypocrite. I’m anti-death penalty because once we execute an innocent man, we can’t go back from that as a society. And once we torture an innocent man… well, same thing.

    You got your rocks off waterboarding each other at a party. Good on you. But please know that what you “went through” is not torture–you got to say stop.

  90. 90.

    Michael

    November 13, 2011 at 9:55 pm

    Michael Kinsley has his low moments for sure, but I did enjoy his take on moronic arguments like Caz’s. Torture for Dummies

    What if you knew for sure that the cute little baby burbling and smiling at you from his stroller in the park was going to grow up to be another Hitler, responsible for a global cataclysm and millions of deaths? Would you be justified in picking up a rock and bashing his adorable head in? Wouldn’t you be morally depraved if you didn’t? Or what if a mad scientist developed a poison so strong that two drops in the water supply would kill everyone in Chicago? And you could destroy the poison, but only by killing the scientist and 10 innocent family members? Should you do it? Or what if an international terrorist planted a nuclear bomb somewhere in Manhattan, set to go off in an hour and kill a million people. You’ve got him in custody, but he won’t say where the bomb is. Is it moral to torture him until he gives up the information? Questions like these have been pondered and disputed since the invention of the college dorm, but rarely, until the past couple of weeks, unstoned.

    But college dorm what-ifs like this one share a flaw: They posit certainty (about what you know and what will happen if you do this or that). And uncertainty is not only much more common in real life: It is the generally unspoken assumption behind civil liberties, rules of criminal procedure, and much else that conservatives find sentimental and irritating. Sure, if we could know the present and predict the future with certainty, we could torture only people who deserve it. Not just that: We could go door-to-door killing people before they kill others. We could lock up innocent people who would otherwise be involved in fatal traffic accidents. Civil libertarians like to believe that criminals get their Miranda warnings and dissidents enjoy freedom of speech because human rights are universal. But if we knew for sure that a newspaper column by Charles Krauthammer would lead—even by a chain of events he never intended and bore no responsibility for—to World War II, wouldn’t we be nuts not to censor it? Universal human rights would make no sense in a world where everything was known and certain. This is not to say that Krauthammer’s killer hypothetical could never happen. It is to say that morality does not require us to build a general policy on torture around a situation that is not merely unlikely in real life, but different in kind from the situations we are likely to face in real life. What we would do or should do if this situation actually arose is an interesting question for bull sessions in the dorm, but not a pressing issue for the nation.

  91. 91.

    Chris

    November 13, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    And how about you address my hypothetical, bin Lurkin’?

    Luckily, Caz, we don’t have to. If we were living in your hypothetical, we’d have a Hollywood scriptwriter controlling our thoughts and actions, and he would arrange a happy ending just as convenient and improbable as the “terrorists put a bomb in LA but were nice enough to give it forty-eight hours before it exploded, and then have the one man who knows how to defuse it just happen to fall into our lap” plot device in the first place.

    To answer your question, Chuck Norris would kill EVERYONE. The terrorists would try to stop him, but all their bullets would miss until their guns were empty, allowing him to roundhouse kick them in the FACE (especially that one, really muscular Head Thug who’s been giving him shit for half the movie). Chuck Norris would then proceed into the building with the bomb. Then there would be another, more epic, one-on-one duel against the Main Villain, with bad sound effects and more roundhouse kicking, which Chuck Norris would win JUST IN TIME to stop the timer at 00:01. There’d be a few gratuitous wrap-up scenes, possibly including a sex scene and/or a shitty joke to close the movie, and then the credits would roll.

    Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

  92. 92.

    Mark K

    November 13, 2011 at 9:57 pm

    The “ticking time bomb” scenario is easily refuted by the authority of a Presidential pardon. Someone goes to far and tortures someone but saves the day, you give them a pardon for breaking the law.

    But you don’t make breaking the law legal you stupid coward caz!

  93. 93.

    Chris

    November 13, 2011 at 10:01 pm

    @Chris:

    Disclaimer: I don’t want to sound like I’m hating on those old school action flicks. I am ALL ABOUT old school action flicks, the cornier and shittier the better. As a matter of fact, I’m about to put in Die Hard With A Vengeance right now. Please don’t think I’m a hater :)

  94. 94.

    magurakurin

    November 13, 2011 at 10:03 pm

    @Caz: your hypothetical assumes that waterboarding or some other form of torture will, in fact, guarantee your getting the location of the nuclear bomb. Yet, this isn’t the case. There is no guarantee that torture will result in your getting the information you need. Quite the contrary many expert interrogators have reported and insisted that the exact opposite is the case and that torture is a highly ineffective method of extracting the truth.

    But you know all that. You’re just here for the paycheck.

  95. 95.

    Michael

    November 13, 2011 at 10:05 pm

    Also, as an idiot teenager, I allowed a friend of mine to burn me with a cigarette because I thought I could block out the pain. He didn’t actually put out the cigarette…he just let it rest on my arm. It burned a small circular hole, and I still have a scar from it. I shrugged it off at the time (I thought I was tough).

    By Caz’s logic, then, if the government were to pick him up off the street, bind him, gag him, put a hood over his head, secret him off to some foreign country, deprive him of sleep, simulate drowning him dozens of times, and then burn his flesh over and over and over, the strongest claim he’d have on them is false arrest. Because obviously anything anyone would volunteer to try out at a party is not torture, including burning through skin.

  96. 96.

    jl

    November 13, 2011 at 10:09 pm

    My take home is that I will be a lot more careful about going to parties from now on.

  97. 97.

    Jebediah

    November 13, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    @Chris:
    I hereby nominate you for threadwin.

  98. 98.

    Chris T.

    November 13, 2011 at 10:46 pm

    Michelle Bachmann would probably waterboard Mormons because they’re “not Christian”.

  99. 99.

    AxelFoley

    November 13, 2011 at 10:51 pm

    @Billy Rae Valentine:

    Others have already answered your question, but I just want to take issue with one thing–I’m the one who has the market cornered on Eddie Murphy character-related usernames, good sir.

  100. 100.

    fourmorewars

    November 13, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    In the otherwise great except of Benen’s posted here, one quibble: his list of GOP audiences applauding horrible things left out the best one, in fact the one I’d play over and over again in thke last weeks of the ’12 campaign…the one where Cain was asked if he wanted to take back his ‘blame yourself’ comment. The Democrats should replaythat over and over again, his telling the questioner ‘no’ (he wouldn’t take it back) and the audience roaring its approval. Would anything seal the deal better than playing ads of these slimeballs cheering their fellow Americans’ misery?

  101. 101.

    El Cid

    November 13, 2011 at 11:22 pm

    We have to torture people because some of them might be Al Qa’ida or at least be people who somehow remind us of Al Qa’ida.

  102. 102.

    Chris

    November 13, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    @fourmorewars:

    In the otherwise great except of Benen’s posted here, one quibble: his list of GOP audiences applauding horrible things left out the best one, in fact the one I’d play over and over again in thke last weeks of the ‘12 campaign…the one where Cain was asked if he wanted to take back his ‘blame yourself’ comment.

    Wait, what? That comment from Cain sounds familiar, but what the FUCK?

    They believe that the economic crisis was all caused by big government interfering in the marketplace, yes? And also that big government interfering in the marketplace is keeping unemployment rates high, yes? So clearly, these unemployed people aren’t guilty of anything other than being victims of government interference.

    Yet somehow, they’re the ones responsible for their current plight, and they could TOTALLY find themselves a job right this second if they’d just hoist themselves up by their boostraps? Well, God damn! Oppressive government interference just ain’t what it used to be.

  103. 103.

    El Cid

    November 13, 2011 at 11:30 pm

    @Chris: WAIT — won’t there be any leaping through windows just as the room explodes behind them?

  104. 104.

    Chris

    November 13, 2011 at 11:37 pm

    @Jebediah:

    I hereby nominate you for threadwin.

    Why, thank you! I accept.

    @El Cid:

    WAIT —won’t there be any leaping through windows just as the room explodes behind them?

    Depends on the budget :)

  105. 105.

    El Cid

    November 13, 2011 at 11:42 pm

    @Chris:

    Depends on the budget :)

    You mean, there might be rooms exploding without them being able to escape by jumping out the windows?

    What, are they supposed to just open a door to get out of a room which is soon to explode?

  106. 106.

    Frankensteinbeck

    November 13, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    @Roger Moore:
    Won’t extradite? Yemen would have LOVED to extradite Al-Awlaki, or at least have killed him themselves. He was a rebel dedicated to the overthrow of their government to replace it with a theocracy. He was also a rebel in the middle of rebel held territory hiding with a tribe that publicly swore to kill anyone who came after him. They couldn’t get him.

    Which is part of why this qualified as Al-Awlaki deliberately waiving his right to fair trial, as a federal judge rather emphatically ruled. Yes, you can do that. This is not new or unprecedented or a violation of the constitution. This is an obscure section of the law that stays obscure because few people are able to do what Al-Awlaki did and deliberately make themselves unable to be tried.

  107. 107.

    Chris

    November 13, 2011 at 11:55 pm

    @El Cid:

    Oh, I think I can promise you lots of explosions and shit. But that might cost too much for us to hire a decent scriptwriter with the money that’s left.

  108. 108.

    Scamp Dog

    November 14, 2011 at 12:53 am

    @Chris: That’s not an obstacle for many movies, I understand.

  109. 109.

    Lojasmo

    November 14, 2011 at 9:25 am

    @Caz:

    Your hypothetical has been addressed. As water boarding is KNOWN, ABSOLUTELY as a failure to obtain accurate information, it should not be used in your doomsday scenario.

    Also, too, if you would really like to “try” water boarding, meet me and bin lurkin in a city of your choice. You will be bound and properly water boarded over a period of a week. I will pay for lodging.

  110. 110.

    Mjaum

    November 14, 2011 at 10:19 am

    I always enjoy it when the right-wingers bring up their favourite little ticking-bomb scenario.

    Because for some reason they believe that this scenario justifies the legalization of torture.

    As others have pointed out, it does not do that. But what has not been covered is this: Said right-wingers will only torture to save millions, according to their own scenario, if they can be assured, ahead of time, that they will not be held repsonsible for it in a court of law.

    So a right-winger will happily torture to save millions. But risk jail-time? Oh no!

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