Mild Torture During Interrogations. That's O.K, Isn't It ?

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by TheStinger
its immoral to cheat in your exams, i wouldn'y say that was evil though

What if it was a neurosurgery exam?

[Dr Strangelove]

While I'm here I'd like to mention that there is no such thing as "truth serum". What is generally claimed to be a truth serum is Sodium Pentothal, a type of rapidly acting injectable barbiturate. It sedates the subject but does not keep him from concealing a truth that he knows will harm him. It's like saying that drunks never lie.

[SlowwHand]

Right. They just tend to drool and slur their words, while they lie.

[Ramo]

What would you call your Social Security Card, among others ?

A police officer can't order me to give him my social security card without a damn good reason. National ID's have a wider scope than SS cards (which I think has far too much of a scope anyways).

So you would be against national I.D. cards because it would expose some people's criminal wrong doing?

No, I would be against national ID cards because it facillitates authoritarian oppression.

[Dinner]

It's the same as having a passport. Do passports facilitate authoritarian oppression? Using them certainly would help to curb illegal activiaties such as foreign flight students over staying there visas.

[KrazyHorse]

I wouldn't mind there being a national ID...as long as all it was required for was the same things that regular IDs are required for nowadays.

If that is so, it doesn't do anything except facilitate the paperwork and make it harder to get a fake...

[Ramo]

Huh? I only have to show a passport to the government when I'm travelling internationally. Think a little man!

BTW, yes they do, albeit to a much more limited extent.

[Ramo]

I wouldn't mind there being a national ID...as long as all it was required for was the same things that regular IDs are required for nowadays.

Neither would I. However, over here, people have been arguing, for instance, people have to always have their ID's in case the police thinks you look like an illegal immigrant - or since 9/11, a terrorist. I don't mind national ID's all that much provided they aren't mandatory.

[KrazyHorse]

Exactly. If we have national IDs, I want them to be amalgamations of nowadays' IDs. I want them to be my driver's license, medicare card, birth certificate, passport and student ID all at once.

And I want to be able to leave it at home and take a walk or a bus ride if I feel like it.

[Dinner]

If they are not manditory then they would be useless. We should have national I.D.s and they should be manditory every time you want a job, get pulled over for a traffic violation, file your taxes, buy a car or house, enroll in public school, and a great many other things. This way criminals who have broken the law and are here illegally can be farrated out and sent back where they belong.

[Ramo]

If they are not manditory then they would be useless.

They would be useless to assist in the oppression of unlucky immigrants, yes. That's a good thing.

[metalhead]

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[Nubclear]

What about the people who arent guilty? I don't know about other people, but I'd certainly break quite easily to escape most forms of torture.

We can't commit this atrocity knowing that a ton of people who arent guilty are going to be punished for a crime they haven't even commited.

In the context of terroprism, there are many things to be gleaned from these people that they will only give up if faced with a lifetime of physical pain.

The United States (like what it did after Pearl Harbour) rounded up about a thousand Arabs and detained them. Imagine if they had tortured each and every one of them (and I wouldnt put it past them). How many innocent people would be charged and possibly (probably) convicted of a henious crime that they have NO CONNECTION to?

Torture in any circumstance is wrong and inhumane. It's not okay to torture ANYBODY for information.

[jasev]

If someone tortures me, I'd confess I murdered both Kennedys and Luther King. And I hadn't born yet

In over 90% of muder cases, the prime suspect is guilty

I only hope you'll never belong to the other 10%. Because you would confess.

[civman2000]

You want someone thrown out simply because he advicated useing a national I.D. card. A card similiar to one used in most other industrialized countries? The ACLU is supposed to be about prtecting constituitional rights not about advicating political actions that have nothing to do with the constituition.

The ACLU's nonprofit status is contingent to it maintaining a nonpartisan position on all things political. If they started to screen their membership to make sure everyone espoused the same far left political mantra then they would have to registar as a political lobbying group and would probably go bankrupt since they'd would lose their tax protected status.

I think it's OK that he wasn't kicked out for just this. BUt with everything else he's done, advocating torture and all, he should not still be in the ACLU.