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January 30, 2010
Richard A. Posner's
"Not a sucide pact: the constitution in
a time of national emergency" (2006)
p. 83
"The unreliability of evidence procured by
torture (the problem of false positives) is
a compelling practical reason for excluding
such evidence form a criminal trial. But
reliability is not a critical issue when
torture is used to obtain national security
intelligence.
"The idea that torture is not only a cruel
and ugly practice but just about the worst
thing that a government can do confuses
torture as a routine practice of dictators,
often intended to intimdate rather than
elicit information, and as a method long
used to extract false confessions to
political crimes and (necessarily false)
confessions to non-existent crimes such as
sorcery, with torture as an exceptional
method of coutnerterrorist interrogation."
When I read things like this, I have
fantasies of the author suddenly
stopping, looking up into the mirror In the classic fictional
and saying to themselves "What is the version of this fantasy,
matter with me? What the hell have I a critical, traumatic
been saying?" event would bring about
the sudden realization.
If this is what it sounds
like when someone is Meeting an actual
being reasonable and torture victum, perhaps...
pragmatic, I don't want
any part of it. Or maybe just seeing
a few photos?
Phrases come to mind, like "the
banality of evil", or perhaps "the In something really
dull, droning, shilly-shalling, heavy-handed, like
hair-splitting spin-doctoring and the old Charteris
white-wash cycle of evil" Saint stories, the
hero would kidnap the
advocate of torture
and apply appropriate
treatment until they
finally grasp the issue.
If I remember correctly, Posner
has argued that the notion that
"torture is useless" is clearly Right.
wrong, or otherwise people
wouldn't try to use it so often.
And playing roulette must be a
Is it remotely possible that great way to get rich, or else
this man could sincerely people would stop trying.
have his head jammed so far
up the rational actor Ah, but obviously our guys are
hypothesis? MADNESS highly trained professionals,
RATACT much smarter than the schmucks
24_TEARS in Vegas.
They never engage in useless
Posner himself, is of course, activity to keep some
the soul of civility, and he politician happy. And they
insists that we must get beyond never (well hardly ever)
the notion that anyone who succumb to mere sadism.
rationally debates the utility
of torture is some sort of monster. Or indulge in emotionally
satisfying but ultimately
Allow me to suggest that counter-productive acts of
if you're going to pick retribution.
something to get angry
about, try getting angry
at the spectacle of
enlightened intellectuals
calmly considering torture.
They're only behind LONG_NOSED_BEAGLES
the times by around
a thousand years.
Resolved: US Forces should
not be acting like the bad
guys in a cold war spy novel.
Posner's great idea is that
torture should always be in the
back of everyone's minds even
though there's no explicit
legal sanction for it... that
way the uncertainty will create
some pressure against misusing
it, see?
Here's my idea: if it's better
for torture to be unspeakable
and unthinkable, let's stop
speaking and thinking about it.
(And doing it.)
"Writing in The New Republic last
fall, Richard Posner, a judge on
the US Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit, expressed
reservations about Dershowitz's
proposal but argued that 'if the
stakes are high enough, torture is
permissible. No one who doubts
that this is the case should be in
a position of responsibility.' "
[ref]
"In Torture We Trust?" by Eyal Press, March 13, 2003
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