Unbelievable
Mild torture? No biggie. Torture opponents? Totally insufferable.
Terrifying stuff indeed.
UPDATE: Sebastian at Obsidian Wings offers this typically weak response:
Patterico, you work with the government. You know for a fact that it gets things wrong all the time. Even when we go through the huge and complicated process of a trial, it gets things wrong. And we aren’t talking anything like a trial here. In reality, we are talking about torturing *suspects*. That is not a power to be given to the government.
Your hypothetical doesn’t speak to the question of what the policy of our government ought to be, because no important part of the hypothetical actually has anything to do with the empirical reality of governmental torture. You pride yourself at not being distracted by stated intentions which have bad consequences in areas like rent control, housing policy, and education policy. Don’t let Bush wave the national security flag and make you forget everything you know about how the government actually operates.
Dude, stop engaging Patterico like he’s a sane human being. He wants to give the state the power to torture people. He’s a very, very demented individual.
This is basically what Patterico’s argument boils down to: Say your mother was dying of a disease and the last tube of the antibiotic needed to save her was held by a crazy scientist who was refusing to sell it to you at any price. The only way you can save your mother is by gouging out one of his eyes and skull-fucking him in front of his entire family. Will that forced skull-fucking have been worth it?
Chest-thumping moralist LIEberals who whine about the evils of eye-gouging and skull-fucking clearly hate their mothers. Neener, neener, neener.
[Gavin adds: Um, this scenario seems quite unlikely.]
[Bradrocket replies: That’s sorta the idea. Pattycakes has made up an extreme hypothetical in order to justify the government’s waterboarding policy.]
[Gavin adds: I want to note, just in case anyone hasn’t followed these sagas, that Patterico is a Los Angeles County prosecutor. This prosecutor is in favor of confessions obtained under torture. My WTFuckulator went on the blink quite awhile ago, but it’s nagging like a phantom limb.]
UPDATE 2: This is better:
While imprisoning people, we go through one of the more complex social structures around. Through it all, we still make mistakes, but the process can be very exhaustive. A lack of absolute perfection is not the crux of the argument. The problem is that the kind of high pressure situation that is always used to justify torture (ticking bomb, imminent threat, near-term plot) is definitionally NOT conducive to exhaustively determining guilt before the torture begins. Since, as you say, we make mistakes about innocence EVEN AFTER THE EXHAUSTIVE CRIMINAL PROCESS, it is a certainty that torture will be employed against innocents at a much greater rate than is found in imprisoning people.
Nope, you’re wrong, dude. Torture only gets used against the super-duper-mega-evil bad guys who will let a nuclear bomb go off RIGHT NOW IN YOUR HOUSE UNLESS YOU TORTURE THEM!!!!! Just like on 24!!!!
God, I need a drink.
Dude, stop engaging Patterico like he’s a sane human being. He wants to give the state the power to torture people. He’s a very, very demented individual.
Because he works for the state, he thinks this will give him the power to torture people, and he REALLY wants that. Starting with Mario.
Any bets as to the availability of torture devices in Patterico’s mom’s subbasement?
Any bets as to the availability of torture devices in Patterico’s mom’s subbasement?
Shee-it, she probably proudly displays them in her kitchen right under the “board of education” that she used to keep Mikey in line…
Waterboarding is of course, torture.
For Patterico though, it is merely one form of coercive interrogation. In his universe,coercion is morally defensible because it is merely a matter of degrees for him.
It took this long for the glibertarians to engage the conservatards about government torture, but it’s still fun to watch.
See them quote CS Lewis! Guffaw as they repeatedly exhort wingtard posters to refrain from nastiness! Imagine their atrophied neurons quivering as they slowly absorb the idea of a President Hillary in a non-ticking-timebomb scenario!
Here is Patterico’s central fantasy:
This is a complete and utter delusion. He back it up by referring to a report by Brian Ross on batshit nuts Dominionist ABC News.
I bet Patterico can barely wait to get out the anal pear.
Oh well. It’s been a while since I said it, so I’ll take this opportunity to say it again.
It’s not about the “scenario”. Not the bomb with the LED clock counting down. Not the vile vial of lethal bacteria poised to drop into the water supply. Not the evil terrorist mastermind and his dastardly plans.
It’s not about the victims. Not how many might die. And not how many might live.
It’s not about the threat, the intelligence, the victims, or the magnitude of the impending catastrophe.
It’s about us. You, you, that guy over there in that stupid yellow tie, and you behind the bar. America. Our society.
What do we want to be? What kind of people do we aspire to be? Is our cultural role model the Stasi? Our societal touchstone SAVAK? Shall we sing brave odes to the historical efficacy of the Mukhabarat?
Or should we perhaps look to our own recent past. Willing to stand against truly existential threats, the Axis in the second world war and the Soviet Union in the cold war, without deserting the moral high ground, willing to accept an increased risk if that was required because the alternative was to become what we were fighting against, and if the fighting took courage, then fighting on our terms took more. And we look back at those men and women of courage with awe and respect, because they had the courage. Not just courage to fight, but the courage of their convictions. The courage to fight by OUR rules, even if nobody else lived by them, because the rules were what informed our fight, made us RIGHT, made us the ones that SHOULD win.
And, it must be noted, win we did. In spite of these “shackles” we put around our own ability to wage unlimited, unrestricted, uncompromising warfare.
I do not understand these thugs we find among us. Why do they rail against our enemies, calling them barbarians and worse, and then race to see how quickly they can make us just like them? When we are hated and feared by the rest of the world, with our mighty military and our feared gulags, our torturers and our prisons filled with all manner of dissenters and insurgents, what then will we have won? What victory does history record for the most barbaric nation-states? What prize can not just be taken, but held?
I fear for your children…
mikey
Hot damn mikey! Well said!
You probably should file Patterico under “Stupidity; contending against in vain; gods”. If he had any interest in facts or arguments, he would not be resorting to hypothetical cases.
I bet the tighty righties would be really upset if we water boarded Santa in our War on Christmas.
Iz all I am saying.
Wow. Erm, let’s grant him that his hypothetical shows that torture might, at some point, be morally justifiable. I disagree, but fine, let him have his stupid point.
Does that really mean that you should destroy the entire international legal regime saying “toture bad”?
I mean, if that 1 in a zillion chance happens, and the perfect hypothetical comes up, isn’t that why we have Presidential pardons? Let Mr. 24 torture and save the day, and get pardoned.
I followed a link from the Blog Awards and this is allegedly a funny blog.
Is there a comedy section I’m missing? Or is paraphrasing bad gung-ho ’80s military flicks that popularized the phrase “skull fucking” supposed to be teh funny?
I’m assuming there must be an actually funny section. Where’s the link? Please don’t tell me this is it. Jon Swift was nominated ferchristsake.
Dave must’ve been refreshing all day so he could post his comment.
Dave, you’re not trying.
C’mon, say it with me now.
Skull. Fucking.
Still nothing?
Ok, I see the problem. Dave’s an idiot with no sense of humor…
mikey
Or is paraphrasing bad gung-ho ’80s military flicks that popularized the phrase “skull fucking” supposed to be teh funny
Oh, no, this is teh funny.
Sebastian Holsclaw is the whole reason I miss out on Hilzoy, never read Obsidian Wings. I can’t stand him. His presence in damn near every third thread at Crooked Timber almost makes me avoid that place, too.
Note Holsclaw’s style. Now notice what certain liberal defenders of his say about him. Then get a micrometer and measure the difference to 2003 model Tacitus/Trevino.
We Americans would trash that cherished freedom and independence we alone possess in the world by submitting our children to the failed mind control of government-run schools and and by soon surrendering our very health to inefficient and backwards bureaucracies of tyrannical socialized medicine. Government is not here to solve the problem, government is the problem.
That said, when government agents kidnap and torture you or anyone you know because they may or may not suspect you of some degree of relation to terrorists, no rule nor law may be placed as an obstacle in their path of Keeping Us Safe, and it is neither your business nor anyone else’s to know what has happened to you or anyone else and for what if any reason.
Good Lord, two days after I advocate cutting Ron Paul a little slack, three military helicopters just flew in formation over my house! I know they were dark green, but the way the sunlight hit them, they looked black!
Anyway, I — *THIS POST HAS BEEN REDACTED BY THE CIA. THE BUREAU DISAVOWS ALL KNOWLEDGE OF THE LOCATION AND CONDITION OF THE ORIGINAL WRITER.*
Dave likes pie don’t you Dave? I know you do.
Dave… please don’t, don’t Dave. I can feel my mind going. I can feel it. I can feel it.
Shall I sing you a song?
Davey Davey give me your answer do.
You are crazy, teh funny’s not funny to you.
It won’t be a giant sammich
You hold in your hands, which
will be incomplete, till then you can eat
a well deserved and sincere fuck you.
We needed to torture KSM to uncover a plot to fly planes into buildings in a large U.S. city after 9/11 already happened? Huh, you mean to tell me that once something happens, it can happen again?
For Patterico though, it is merely one form of coercive interrogation. In his universe,coercion is morally defensible because it is merely a matter of degrees for him.
Um, as an LA prosecutor, he does know that coercion is inadmissible and illegal, right? Just askin’.
How does the cliche’ go? Republicans run for office by claiming government doesn’t work, then go about proving it once they get elected? I’ll see your soundbite & raise you a trite cliche’!
Yeah, that whole ‘infrastructure’ thing is waay overrated. For example, before the FDA, meat was totally safe to eat .
argle-bargle-gargle? If the ‘mind control’ is ‘failed’, erm, what’s the harm again?
I know, I know, public schools are an abject failure at teaching things like literacy.
Tender Mercenaries, maybe if Bush had had Condi tortured she would have told him what was in that super duper double secret memo and kept it from happening, didja ever think about that?
RodeoBob. You may want to read the 2 paragraphs together again, and note if you see any intentional logical conflict. Just sayin’.
Incidentally, I am willing to bet that a disproportionate number of these high powered guys who are currently advocating for torture have a disproportionate number of unusual sex aficionados in their midst.
I’ve heard there are a number of very, very good professional Dommes running dungeons in the LA area, is all I’m saying.
Is there a comedy section I’m missing?
Have you read the second place blog in that poll? S,N!’s grimmest moments are twice as funny as that turd.
Then again, being waterboarded is twice as funny as DUmmie FUnnies.
Can’t personally speak as to how good they are, but we do have several dungeons in town, & many of them have been going for quite a while, so I’ll assume they aren’t bad.
Perhaps if Patterico had been able to put the screws to O. J. Simpson, Robert Blake & Phil Spector there wouldn’t have been the acquittals & mistrial that’ve made our little county a late-night telebision laughingstock. I’ll suspect Patterico only prosecutes misdemeanor drug offenders & drunk drivers, & compensates by proving his macho on the webs.
Aw, you guys scared off Dave. I love it when righties visit complaining there’s no funny and don’t bother dropping any funny off for perusal.
You guys ruin everything.
To be fair, Patterico does reference an O’Reilly transcript to back up his hypothetical.
Which is some pretty rigorous hypothetical-supporting, as long as you hypothetically assume that it’s not a totally dumbass thing to do.
Assume the following facts are true: we nabbed Nasty Al-Nasty ibn Nasty, pretty quickly he bragged that in a day we will regret that he was ever born, but refused to anwer why.
After several sessions of waterboarding the following facts emerge: a bunch of his cohort drive toward Huston, Texas, each with a nuclear bomb. Then one of them will use a secret code over the radio to detonate the nukes. Most importantly, a broadcast of another secret code would disable all the devices.
At this point things went ugly. Al-Nasty first refused to disclose the secret code, taunting the interrogators, then claimed not to remember them. Waterboarding stopped giving any effects. What should be done next?
1. Interrogators should call it a day, and what a grueling day it was!
2. Sterner measures should be applied, like hammering needles under the fingernails, and then ripping the fingernails off.
For a moment, the consensus on the Right seems to be that waterboarding is a judiciously selected procedure that we can apply in important cases, even that we would not evern dream about applying real torture. Why to draw the line there?
Some arbitrage is necessary. The measures should be drastic enough to drive lieerals to conniptions, but mild enough to convince cluless voters (a key swing group of voters) that the conniptions experienced by liberals prove what Islamofascist lovers they are, while in no way is the Administration guilty of wankery and sadism. If liberals would accept waterboarding, Administration would have to move to ripping off fingernals. Which does not give permanent body damage as fingernails grow back. If liberals would accept ripping off fingernail, Administration would be force to do something more drastic, like unnecessary apendoctomies without anestesia.
[blows special Patterico Alert whistle that only Mario George Nitrini (The O.J. Simpson Case) can hear]
_____________
The Neko Case
I wonder if Patterico would approve of cattle prods? No permanent damage if done correctly. A little lube is always welcome ya know. We could bring in Latin American graduates from The School of the Americas. They’ve got the experience after all.
Fuck these idiots. The revolution can’t come soon enough if guys like Patterico are the first up against the wall.
You misspellt “nucular.”
That guy is golden. I still laugh whenever I think of “PATTYCLUCKO.”
I think my favorite Nitrini move is just going CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK at Patterico whenever more conventional rhetoric fails him.
__________
The Man in a Suit Case
The basic republican viewpoint is that the government is completely incapable of figuring out who actually deserves S-Chip, but somehow perfectly capable of figuring out who deserves getting “renditioned” off to Syria for 2 years of torture. One, they always get wrong, and the other, they always get right? Sure….
We could bring in Latin American graduates from The School of the Americas.
Aren’t all the teachers from that lovely institution still on our payroll, or retired but ready to get back in harness to save ‘Murika? Unless we’d just like to out-source on general, privatize everything principles?
When I type “our” & “we” I don’t mean “us.”
It baffles me that the same people who think saying “Do you want to put your health in the hands of the same people who run the Post Office???” is a slam-dunk unanswerable comeback to any argument in favor of national health care are the same ones who claim that torture’s no biggie because of course the very same government the’d previously railed against would never screw that up …
It’s been far too long since Mario G. has stopped by. I hope he is doing well.
————————————————————-
The Case Western Reserve University case
One, they always get wrong, and the other, they always get right? Sure….
Hey, you can’t make an omelet without waterboarding a few eggs.
The School of the Americas is now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and is currently located at Fort Benning, GA.
Patterico is a fine example of exactly WHY there is so much process and red tape involved with even the simplest of law enforcement.
Because, 230 years ago, a bunch of men in a stanky Philly one room apartment knew that; just because someone is an authority figure (being it President, judge, lawyer, or cop) DOESN’T mean they should be trusted.
“It baffles me that the same people who think saying “Do you want to put your health in the hands of the same people who run the Post Office???” is a slam-dunk unanswerable comeback to any argument in favor of national health care…”
Thank god our military is privately run by competent corporations…
My simple question is this: based on these hypothetical facts, was the waterboarding session worth it?
And the answer is… no. Evolve, dumbass.
Dave, I dunno…
He’s no Bruce, that’s for sure.
There are people in the United States of America who want to give their government the right to torture.
Did ya hear that, almost everybody in sub-Saharan Africa? They want torture. If only I had the power to allow you and them to switch places, if only for a while.
A pro in LA? As in Los Angeles, CA, home of the world’s friendliest and most civilized police force?
No. He doesn’t know and he’d be shocked to learn otherwise.
This is basically what Patterico’s argument boils down to: Say your mother was dying of a disease and the last tube of the antibiotic needed to save her was held by a crazy scientist who was refusing to sell it to you at any price. The only way you can save your mother is by gouging out one of his eyes and skull-fucking him in front of his entire family. Will that forced skull-fucking have been worth it?
Of course Patterico fails to carry his argument through to it’s “logical” conclusion.Whilst eye-gouging and skull-fucking, one runs an extremely high risk of knocking the last vial of antibiotic from the crazy scientist’s hands, rendering it useless for dear old mom. So you begin by threatening, parrying, and talking a good game, while the crazy scientist dances around. You thrust with the box cutter at his eyes, but succeed only in triggering a nosebleed and inflicting a multiplicity of facial lacerations that are making the floor too slick for you to get traction to attempt skull-fucking. After days of this crap, you finally shoot mom and declare victory.
Ruthie said,
November 16, 2007 at 8:50
This is basically what Patterico’s argument boils down to: Say your mother was dying of a disease and the last tube of the antibiotic needed to save her was held by a crazy scientist who was refusing to sell it to you at any price. The only way you can save your mother is by gouging out one of his eyes and skull-fucking him in front of his entire family. Will that forced skull-fucking have been worth it?
Of course Patterico fails to carry his argument through to it’s “logical” conclusion.Whilst eye-gouging and skull-fucking, one runs an extremely high risk of knocking the last vial of antibiotic from the crazy scientist’s hands, rendering it useless for dear old mom. So you begin by threatening, parrying, and talking a good game, while the crazy scientist dances around. You thrust with the box cutter at his eyes, but succeed only in triggering a nosebleed and inflicting a multiplicity of facial lacerations that are making the floor too slick for you to get traction to attempt skull-fucking. After days of this crap, you finally shoot mom and declare victory.
Anyone who has ever dealt with a politically motivated assistant district attorney knows Patterico.
Yo, crazy scientists, thrusting moms… dude… thats some… dude… whoa… wonder if we could make abong from a humjan skull? Think about it man it would be awesome…
The revolution can’t come soon enough if guys like Patterico are the first up against the wall.
When the revolution comes, Patterico will be standing along the parade route with candy & flowers & the “secret dossiers” on his former boss, his former boss’s former boss, his former cubicle-mates, and every single girl who ever turned him down in high school. He’s the American version of the old Stasi employees.
I first became aware of Patterico when he was playing “Nice leetle blog ya got here, *shame* if sumpin was ta happen when I published ya Real Name which I just happen to be jugglin here in my sweaty hands” routines intended to silence a member of the Reality-Based Community. (It didn’t work, because the challenged blogger had more balls than Patterico by a factor of about eleventy-jillion.) Such are the tactics of third-rate scavengers who become professional torture cheerleaders because they lack the guts, or the gifts, to do their own bullying. He doesn’t give a rat’s about the “security” of the government whose funds he wastes blogging about the immorality of government, he just likes the idea of being able to hurt people without the risk of being punished for it afterwards.
You know, even if we grant that torture would work in this case it should still be illegal. This is not only for reasons of morality and general effectiveness (which stand on their own). In essence, if some form of torture is legal, the people who are allowed to legally use it will then do so as a matter of routine, based on fear and the flimsiest of evidence. There will be no barrier to prevent them from doing this. They risk nothing.
However, when it is illegal we then have a barrier. Government agents will still be able to torture in the case of a ‘ticking time bomb,’ but they can be prosecuted for it, so they had better be damned certain that it will work. It will no longer be a question of routine, but a question of “am I certain enough that the information I need is vital, and that torture will get me this information, to risk going to jail and ruining my career?”
If torture is illegal, and an agent uses torture, and it turns out the agent is right, extenuating circumstances will pardon him from the wrongdoing. But by trying to make torture legal, our would-be torturers are trying to protect themselves from any risk. This is because they know for a fact that life is never certain, and that their own judgement cannot be trusted in every single case.
Anyone who has ever dealt with a politically motivated assistant district attorney knows Patterico.
Most of the politically motivated ADA’s I’ve encountered are disabused of attitudes like Patterico’s within their first few weeks on the job. It is a testament to the inefficiency of large bureaucracies that Patterico has managed to last as long as he has without getting his ass kicked.
Ever since Reagan’s cronies and their ultra macho “Tuff On Krime” years, I’ve watched right wingers aim to establish the principle that your standards depend entirely upon the person with whom you’re dealing.
If you’re dealing with a person they think is a scumbag, then it’s perfectly alright for our whole society to be run like a scumbag. If they’re dealing with someone they like, it’s time to act more sensitive about standards than anyone ever has.
Presumably right wingers also think it’s okay to cheat on tests if (a) other students do it, or (b) you think the teacher doesn’t deserve your honest.
The United States does not torture, and besides, we only torture terrorists. We know this because, if we were to release a tortured non-terrorist, he would definitely become a terrorist. We are amazingly prescient in knowing who will become a terrorist if we release them after torturing them. Pay no attention to the Canadian dude. We didn’t torture him. We entrusted our allies, the Syrians, not to torture him. Who would have guessed that the evil Syrians would torture a non-terrorist?
Dave comes by a thread about TORTURE looking for comedy?
What kind of sick fuck?
Look, any American who has read and understood the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and has a smidgen of morality is sickened by the acts that are being perpetrated in our name.
Authoritarian cultists like Patterico are parsing words in a frenzy that makes Clinton’s ‘definition of is’ moment look like an out and out confession in order to justify a morality-free Government that has no responsibility to protect, serve, or help any citizens, but has the ability to jail them, render them, and torture them on the irrefutable and secret word of one arguably illiterate overprivileged clod.
And dammit, fuck me if I don’t see the joke in that.
I watched a little Bill Hicks last night. Everybody should do it. I think Bill was prescient and died so he wouldn’t have to live through this; he predicted every mother loving act, right up front, on stage, and recorded for posterity.
And he was funny doing it; but he was a genius and he wasn’t living through it.
If the only way Scarlett Johansson would have sex with me is if I waterboarded Patterco, I would totally do it.
Now that a hypothetical that we can all learn from.
Here ya go Brad, one Orange Roughy. With or without the twist?
Here’s a non-hypothetical for Patsy: after WWI a bunch of farmers in Russia refused to give up food to the Soviet government even though millions were starving. Was it ok that the Soviets tortured the farmers to get the food?
Careful now. I just wandered through Balloon Juice and Brave American and Patriot Patericoocooo is whining like his tit’s caught in a blender. As far as I can tell someone there said something nasty about people who write blog posts in support of torture and Pat took it as a Personal Threat.
As much as it pains me to say this, Deputy Patt’s stunning display of pussitude casts grave doubts on the veracity of the Orange Roughy Experiment (ORE). Gavin was not reduced to quivering at shadows and jumping out of his skin at imagined noises. Further, he actually ventured into the scary, terrorist-haunted outdoors (albeit with a protective covering against the strange light of the day star) and ran – or at least moved in a somewhat ungainly manner – down the center of the road, a clearly risky activity.
I’m afraid I don’t think he got the full wingthing experience.
I realize I am a latecomer to this thread, but I am steamed.
What IS it with the wingnuts? In order to justify their favorite hobby (torture), they are constntly gratifying themselves with the recurrent fantasy of a lone know it all “terr’rist” that has the exclusive dope on a terrifying plot. The fact that they work so frigging HARD at coming up with “rational” justifications for torture lets you know how much they ENJOY it.
Do NOT allow these people to breed.