Torture Wrong but Popular

"Considering the hypocrisy, I have yet to figure how the U.S. is still credible."

Frankly, I've yet to figure how some people figure the world thinks we *are* still credible.

Ask the world. We aren't.

Fortunately, the rest of the world has the experience to understand that regimes change.

We can still kick the bums out and make amends.

Yes, some folks very invested in and defined by hating us will still hate us, but, it's not too late.

Where we get to show our democracy *working* is by *making* it work.

If we don't, then people can only hope for a more favorable tyrrany.

And that's what that is.

No question Torture is immoral and ineffective. The U.S. still seems to consider itself the ideal of human rights and freedom: e.g. criticizes China and other countries for human rights violations, yet the U.S. practices waterboarding and god knows what else. Considering the hypocrisy, I have yet to figure how the U.S. is still credible.

Our policies on torture have done Al-Qaeda's recruting for the next decade, maybe beyond that. In that sense, not only is torture immoral, ineffective , but has the potential to lead to future terrorist attacks.

Regettrably many people want the CIA, et al, to be able to abduct and torture people. These are the same people that claim "if you have to nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." Misapplication or outright abuse is beyond the understanding of these people.

Oeste: I agree. I phrase it a bit differently:

TORTURE IS MORALLY INDEFENSIBLE IN EVERY CASE, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE PERPETRATOR OR THE OBJECT OF THE TORTURE.

But, Neibuhr has a point about the popularity thing.

I admit it.
The thought of bush and cheney in the hands of a crazed, sadistic, Islamic extremest group who have lost their children, wives and mothers to those two thugs causes me to salivate. (how did Carter put it - I have lusted in my heart? Yeah, something like that.)

Perhaps the gauge of immorality can be lowered just enough to torture bush and cheney, (add colson - for good measure), BUT not to extract information. The torture would be JUST FOR FUN!!! (I am already smiling).

Frankly, I have a hard time taking anyone who claims there is any religious or humanistic justification for torture seriously.

I've kind of noticed, Dan, that it's not really a contradiction that an 'allegedly most-religious country in the developed world' would also watch shows based on these premises of suffering, violence, societal scorn, emotional distress, and even *torture* as they're part of the very same drama certain forms of Christianity actually insist life is about.

I think it's most obvious in the 'disaster movie' genre, where they cram in a lot of soap opera and morality play. But also in how some *very* Christian in-laws can't get enough of Survivor, when I frankly can't stomach the *gossip* about it, never mind the show itself.

Not to overstate the case, but I think these are products of the very *same* culture of religiosity, where we have Fox News as a right-wing Christian Republican 'news' organ telling the same people to be indignant about the very 'decadent' stuff Fox Network is selling them.

I think there's a certain amount of sadism involvedin some of these ideas, and it's not really in conflict with cultural developments: it's really all part of the same thing.

Perhaps you mean Hostel, or Saw (or Saw 2, Saw 3 or Saw 4)?

Or, from some of the reviews I've heard, maybe you mean Passion of the Christ...

The infliction of suffering on a defenseless victim has an audience today because it satisfies the same impulse as the staged battles and executions of the Roman coliseum.

Its most obvious manifestation in mainstream American society is movies like Hostel and the Saw series, but I see it just below the surface in programs like American Idol and America's Next Top Model as well.

The staged drama is entertaining in some rather pathetic way, but what disturbs me is that I'm actually watching people's lives being made and broken, their dreams being realized or smashed (in the most vicious language possible) as a form of entertainment.

Watching the sadistic Simon Cowell and the judges of America's Next Top Model tear into weeping contestants like the shark in Jaws is the moral equivalent of watching schoolyard bullies torment those smaller than themselves (with the jeering approval of the bystanding crowd - us).

Shame on us if we use cruelty - of any kind - as entertainment.

P.S. American Idol would make an interesting basis for an On Faith question, starting with the "Idol" name. It's a glorious irony that a program with that name and premise is wildly popular in what is allegedly the most religious country in the developed world.

TO R. GUSTAV NIEBUHR:

You wrote, "Can the use of torture ever be justified? Nope.", I agree and that is one of the reasons that they try to talk in circles about it.

You also wrote, "It's against international law, to which the United States is (we thought) party", if anyone remembers it wasn't in the not too distant past that we condemned another country for torturing our citizens. That country, I believe, was not a signatory of the Geneva Convention, as we were and I suppose still are.

Even though that country did not sign the Geneva Convention, it was still wrong to use torture, maybe it was legal for them but it was still wrong by simple human decency even if the other party doesn't show human decency.

If a country uses torture as policy, no matter how legalistically they twist it, they have lost their ability to condemn others for what they are doing themselves.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.