Excite Today’s Poll today asked whether or not the US should ever use physical torture on detainees, and the majority said, “Sure, why not – whatever it takes.”
Do you think that the United States should ever use
physical torture on the people it detains?Yes, in some circumstances 54% => 5420 votes
No, never 41% => 4143 votes
I’m not sure 3% => 395 votes
I don’t care 0% => 61 votes
Current number of voters: 10019
I find this deeply disturbing.
Well, gosh, off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of things.
The most important reason for not torturing people taken in a military action is a very pragmatic approach to the golden rule – if we routinely torture their guys, they’ll be even more likely to torture ours, and hey, I might be that guy.
Beyond that, it’s the lowest and least humane way to get to the desired result – we’ve spent a lot of time trying to convince ourselves and others that we’re “above” that.
There’s also the serious problem that in some small percentage of the cases, we actually get the wrong guy like we did with O.J. Simpson. Seriously, though, several wrongful death sentences have been discovered recently using DNA evidence that wasn’t available in the original trials after the sentences had already been carried out.
Why do you find that disturbing? Majority of the US believe without a doubt that we are naturally the good guys and they (detainees) are the bad guys. So what’s wrong with torturing the bad guys, right?