Torture erases the difference between sides

Torture erases the difference between sides

Someone sent me a "joke" about torture that supposedly relates a minor Australian politician's statements about torture being a good thing, and giving the torturer flippant instructions, if it "will save just one Australian life". I find it disgusting. I'm not sure how anyone can think this subject is amusing.

If you are a torturer, or if you approve of torture under any circumstances, you are just as bad as that which you are supposedly opposing. The only thing that differentiates the "good guys" from the bad guys is a little thing called "the initiation of force". You cross that line and you are a bad guy, you have become evil, even if your enemy is also a bad guy. That's the odd thing about good and evil: two "evils" very often do fight one another and both can remain evil. Good and evil can also fight one another, of course; and two "goods" can not fight without at least one of them becoming evil. There is at least one evildoer in every fight. Don't embrace torture or you ensure that you are one of them.

If you did not use your force to stop an attack in progress, then you initiated the force. Even if you caught your prisoner "in the act", once you have ended his act of aggression you have lost your right to use further force against him.

Torture is always wrong. Those who justify, support, advocate, or use it have lost the high ground and are no better than any other terrorist thug. (On the other hand, catch a person in the act of attacking the innocent and you have free rein to stop the attack with anything up to and including deadly force.)

Don't try to call torture by any euphemisms, either. If you don't want someone doing it to your son or daughter, even if they are suspected of a "crime", then it is torture. Just like " water-boarding" or any of the other Guantanamo methods.

I do not applaud torture from anyone, nor for any reason. As with everything else in life, if you think the only solution is a violation of basic rights, you haven't examined the situation carefully enough. Plus, I doubt it even "works" (although, it is still wrong even if it does "work"). If I were being tortured, would I give truthful information, or would I say whatever I thought the torturer wanted to hear to get the torture to stop? You better believe I would lie if that's what I thought it took, especially if I didn't really have the information that was being sought.

Now, would I torture someone who had harmed or was threatening to harm one of my children? I don't know. If I did, I would still be wrong and would be subject to all the consequences of my actions. If it was worth it to me to commit wrong, I had better accept those consequences. I have no right to initiate force against another person for any reason. No. Right.

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Government masquerading as the solution and causing more problems. The story gets awfully old, but people don't seem to learn the lesson.

Leo's Lounge in Albuquerque is being forcibly closed by the city. A "fire code violation" is the official justification, but the inspectors would have found something- anything- no matter what. I guarantee it.

The city has had problems with Leo's Lounge in the past. It seems it had been ordered to enforce a dress code (who was offended and why couldn't they go elsewhere? Idiots!) and increase security earlier this year, and now its own "security" has choked and beaten a customer into unconsciousness. So the wise city pinheads, seeing the results of their meddling, are now forcing the business to close.

If the security guy attacked an innocent person, let him reap the consequences. If anyone helped him do it, let the burden also be theirs. Would this guy have even been working at the lounge had the city not ordered the lounge to increase security?

"Problem bar"? If you ask me, the people of ABQ should shut down the problem government. That's where the real trouble lies.