A'relevant' moral dillemma

[CSM]

What you are suggesting is ridiculous, you can't change peoples culture any more than you can force them to believe or disbelieve in god.

Obviously you can change a people's culture. History is rife with examples. The Civil War here in the US sure changed Southern culture (slavery, etc). The English did a pretty good job of changing Irish culture and almost all the European colonial empires changed some other people's cultures. In fact, hmans throughout history have meshed, clashed, and adopted cultures for a varitey of reasosn. Some cultures changed more rapidly than others but the culture changed. Ask the Japanese what happened after Perry visited Tokyo bay.

 

[LuvRPgrl]

What you are suggesting is ridiculous, you can't change peoples culture any more than you can force them to believe or disbelieve in god..

Really? Japan circa 1945 went from worshipping an emperor and a radically male dominated nation to one of democracy and womens vote. Afghanastan? Germany?
Yes I agree the killing of children is wrong, but here is where we differ, I believe the killing of children is wrong whether it is intentional or not.Try telling the bereaved it was an accident..[/QUOTE]
Ok, no slithering around this one. You think unintentional killing of children is wrong? wrong as in Immoral? If so, then you think when a person has a blowout in their car and runs over a kid, that is morally equivilant to planting a bomb in a kids classroom?

I have an opinion on what constitutes evil, it may be different to yours but it is still valid as an opinion..

maybe

No I don't think (the majority) of US citizens would support the intentional bombings of weddings etc, but I have no doubt a lot would..

alot? one, one hundred, one hundred thousand?

When you read what 'they' write you are reading the views of extremists.It is in the interests of our governments for us to hate these people, you read and see what they want you to..

Is that your opinion?
you saying the govt has control over our media? thats europe and middle east sir.
And besides, yea, its the extremists I hear, I see you dont deny the extremists saying it. Now, where in America do people scream for the same thing who have as much power and control as the Islam extremists. Apparently people being murdered for making a movie, or being hunted to death for writing a book about Islam that is critical, or innocents killed by rioting over FUCKING cartoons, is "just their culture". Dont you realize their goal is to run the world under radical Islam?

Yes I suppose I am a man of contradictions, aren't we all?That is how we learn and change our minds.If you have a closed mind about any given subject, how on earth do you hope to learn and move on.It is no good sticking your fingers in your ears and singing Lalalalalalalaala........it only works for short periods and ignorance is the result..

One doesnt have to have contradictions in their values, etc, to be open minded. Also, I doubt if you really know what closed minded is. So often a person is presented with some info, and if they dont change their mind, they are called closed minded.But that isnt necessarily so. If the info provided is something the guy already heard, why should he change his mind. A closed mind, and mind you I see this from liberals 99-1 to conservatives, is when you provide a ton of information, and then they say, "well, that may be true, but I still FEEL it is wrong, and thats my OPINION" You hide behind the validity of your open, then accuse others of being closed minded?

Why are you shouting at me with your last paragraph.I am not blind, I managed to read the rest of it ok.

not shouting, emphasizing.

 

[LuvRPgrl]

Obviously you can change a people's culture. History is rife with examples. The Civil War here in the US sure changed Southern culture (slavery, etc). The English did a pretty good job of changing Irish culture and almost all the European colonial empires changed some other people's cultures. In fact, hmans throughout history have meshed, clashed, and adopted cultures for a varitey of reasosn. Some cultures changed more rapidly than others but the culture changed. Ask the Japanese what happened after Perry visited Tokyo bay.

Good examples. And isnt it the liberals who are always screaming how white man has destroyed so many cultures and forced people to adapt to white mans culture? But then when the notion of not being able to change a culture will help their arguement, they are ready to believe it cant be done. Waffles for breakfast anyone?

 

[insein]

Cultural Change is pointless.

Leave them in their 8th century paradise and we'll move onto to bigger better things. We buy their oil or we buy it from somewhere else. Im tired of all the culture change BS. ITs a waste of time to change the minds of a fanatical religion. If the decide to attack us again, simply destroy them. No culture change. No waste of time with an invasion. Parking lot. End of discussion.

 

[manu1959]

Well, you may think it is end of discussion but I disagree, You can't in all conscience be advocating the annihilation of millions because a few maniacs have the audacity to commit acts of terrorism?Surely not?What century do you live in?

no i do no't advocate the position of the muslims to exterminate the entire christian and jewish races because of the actions of a few centuires ago

 

[insein]

Well, you may think it is end of discussion but I disagree, You can't in all conscience be advocating the annihilation of millions because a few maniacs have the audacity to commit acts of terrorism?Surely not?What century do you live in?

No im advocating the annhilation of a people complicit with the ideals of these same terrorists. If they dont take steps to remove these people from their society (dont give safe haven, stop funding suicide bombers families, stop funding terrorist front organizations) then they will deserve the same fate.

 

[manu1959]

We all know that is rhetoric and aint gonna happen, we could blow them of the face of the earth with a flick of the wrist, and they know it, they like to toy with the western world, the USA and UK in particular.In the world wide scheme of things they are fuck all, truth be told, and they know it.We could stop it all now with a nuclear strike, whether it is morally right or wrong doesn't matter, the end result would be the same, we win and write the history books, they are all dead.Guess what side I am on?The victors of course, and I am a an athiest.

if yall had done your job during the crusades we wouldn't be having this discussion..... :scratch:

 

[dilloduck]

if yall had done your job during the crusades we wouldn't be having this discussion..... :scratch:

Then ya went and screwed up all the borders in the mid-east too !!---this is all you fault !

 

[manu1959]

Then ya went and screwed up all the borders in the mid-east too !!---this is all you fault !

no shit the us has only been around for a couple of hundred years....the brits and the french and the dutch fucked everything up....

 

[LuvRPgrl]

I wouldn't exactly call myself a Liberal.

Now I understand your point, adapt or die.I can see how that would work. Forget about diplomacy and goodwill, get straight down to the do as I say or suffer the consequences route.That doesn't constitute cultural change, it amounts to dictatorship and murder.

Please before I 'scream' about any more nasty things the white man has done :huh: tell me how you are going to provoke a cultural change throughout the muslim world?

You argue like a liberal A LOT!

This is sooooo typical.

YOU: "You cant change a culture"

ME: "Yes, you can, we did it with Japan"

YOU: "Oh, thats what you think the solution is huh, change their culture by nuking em?"

You put words in my mouth, fail to admit your original statement was wrong, and totally sidetrack everything.

You make changes by EDUCATING PEOPLE, thats what we have been doing in Japan and now its time to get theMUSLIMS educated with some truth and open freedom of speech there. Opening a democracy in Iraq will have very natural cultural changes, because the open and widespread discussion of different ideas and possibilities will take them out of their narrow dark barbaric world they are subjected to now.

 

[Gem]

roomy,

It seems that in your original question you are looking for a "clean" answer. By that I mean, an answer that will leave the person answering it with no moral qualms about what they are doing.

When it comes to the hypothetical situation you have suggested, there is no such answer.

Are you willing to explain to the thousands of families that will lose a love one if the bombs go off that it was worth it, because YOU held on to your humanity by not torturing an evil man? Will they be somehow sated by the knowledge that you sleep at night with the knowledge that you didn't torture anyone?

Are you willing to put out there that it is appropriate to torture people if we think we need information they have? Are we willing to head down the direction of torturing the innocent family members of evil men in order to save innocents?

How many innocent lives need to be spared for you to justify torturing an innocent wife? An innocent child?

Would you be willing to torture a man to find a bomb that could kill one man? 10? 100? 1000?

I'm reminded of a life-lesson my mother told me once - I'm sure you've heard this one...An attractive man walks into a bar and sits down next to a beautiful woman. They end up chatting, and after awhile he says, "Would you be willing to sleep with me for one million dollars cash?" She barely hesitates before saying, "Absolutely." He replies, "Would you be willing to sleep with me for $10?" She scoffs and says, "Of course not! What do you think I am, a whore?" The man smiles at the woman and replies, "We've already established what you are, dear. Now we're just quibbling over price."

Just like a woman who is willing to sleep with someone for money is a whore - if we are willing to torture someone to save people we are torturers. It doesn't matter if we save 1 or 1 million - we can no longer claim the moral high ground...we are dirty.

What you have to ask yourself is - is getting dirty worth it? Is the knowledge that I will be sacrificing that part of myself worth it.

I, personally, feel the answer is obvious. But if it isn't to you...trying playing with the scenario a bit.

- Imagine that the person you love most in the world is in one of the cities about to be bombed....would you want the man tortured? His wife? His children?

- Imagine that you are not the person who was going to make the decision? Or the person who would carry out the torture. Would your opinion change then?

 

[tim_duncan2000]

If Bush was about to nuke Iran and only he could stop it, would you torture him unto death to save Muslim lives in Iran?

I need more information here. In your situation, what had Iran done already? If they had already launched the first one at US or one of our allies, I wouldn't want to stop Bush anyway and I don't know why anybody else would either.

As far as the original question goes, I'd torture him and at least threaten his family without question. Why not? I mean, he's demented enough to try to have thousands or even millions killed. Who gives a shit about his rights and how is it more moral to let thousands or even millions get killed?

 

[LuvRPgrl]

I see, the US have educated the Japanese. How, and in what way?What cultural changes have been made?Apart from the fact that they play baseball.The US have sushi bars, does that mean the Japanese have educated the US and the US has changed it's culture because of the Japanese influence?

I don't put words into your mouth, I ask questions and wait for replies.Which of my original statements is wrong?Point it out to me show me how it is wrong and if I agree with you I will say so.
I do not sidetrack, I admit this thread has gone off on tangents but the essence has remained, namely morality.
Most of my posts on this thread have been been me trying to see both sides of the story and at times arguing for one side or the other.You my friend have mistaken this whole thread as an opinion of mine, when infact my opinions are clearly signposted both in this thread and other posts I have made.

You accused me of suggesting we nuke em. Thats putting words in my mouth.
as for changing their culture, you need to go read some history on japan. The cultural changes there since 1945 have been enormous. Like, oh, I dont know, WOMEN HAVING RIGHTS, having a DEMOCRACY without a leader who is revered almost as a GOD, to the point they would do kamakazi suicides for him. No longer do they go to war with China and Korea, which had been ongoing for thousands of years, they are now a flourishing technological based economy which wouldnt have occured without us help, just such as is occuring in china now. They are heavily influenced by western culture, music, dress, etc. etc.

Cultures are changed all the time by outside influences.

 

[Diuretic]

Good point.

 

[Mariner]

the original question are questionable:

--How do we know that torture is the only way to get this person to talk?

--How do we know we have the right person, and that the supposed plot is real?

Many military interrogators say that torture simply doesn't work. People say way you want to hear, and withold as much as they can. Techniques of isolating and befriending the person supposedly work better.

The second question is hardly academic, given the number of innocent people being discovered on death row each year. These people's convictions involved massive judicial processes, with numerous checks and balances designed to ensure that only guilty people end up convicted. If such elaborate processes are unreliable, how do we know that whoever tells us we have the right guy is right? In Afghanistan, we are known to have tortured two entirely innocent people to death (at Bagram, as reported by the New York Times last year). This destroys our credibility as saviors and proponents of human diginity.

In terms of torturing this specific guy, I think many people would say that graded torture would be appropriate if other techniques had failed (including checking his laptop for the location of the other bombs--basic police work is likely far more effective than torture, and free of moral scruples), and we had overwhelming evidence that he was the right guy and that the story of unexploded bombs was true.

Torturing his wife and family, though--to me, that's an entirely different dilemma. I would personally consider it morally repugnant to torture an innocent child, no matter what the potential gain. If torturing an innocent child were the only way to save our civilization, I'd have to wonder if our civilization were worth saving.

Mariner

(...who has been a silent lurker on USMB for a couple of months because liberals are no longer needed to critique Bush & company--they're doing a perfectly satisfactory job of impaling themselves on their own swords and shooting one another in the feet... )

 

[rtwngAvngr]

the original question are questionable:

--How do we know that torture is the only way to get this person to talk?

--How do we know we have the right person, and that the supposed plot is real?

Many military interrogators say that torture simply doesn't work. People say way you want to hear, and withold as much as they can. Techniques of isolating and befriending the person supposedly work better.

The second question is hardly academic, given the number of innocent people being discovered on death row each year. These people's convictions involved massive judicial processes, with numerous checks and balances designed to ensure that only guilty people end up convicted. If such elaborate processes are unreliable, how do we know that whoever tells us we have the right guy is right? In Afghanistan, we are known to have tortured two entirely innocent people to death (at Bagram, as reported by the New York Times last year). This destroys our credibility as saviors and proponents of human diginity.

In terms of torturing this specific guy, I think many people would say that graded torture would be appropriate if other techniques had failed (including checking his laptop for the location of the other bombs--basic police work is likely far more effective than torture, and free of moral scruples), and we had overwhelming evidence that he was the right guy and that the story of unexploded bombs was true.

Torturing his wife and family, though--to me, that's an entirely different dilemma. I would personally consider it morally repugnant to torture an innocent child, no matter what the potential gain. If torturing an innocent child were the only way to save our civilization, I'd have to wonder if our civilization were worth saving.

Mariner

(...who has been a silent lurker on USMB for a couple of months because liberals are no longer needed to critique Bush & company--they're doing a perfectly satisfactory job of impaling themselves on their own swords and shooting one another in the feet... )

If you cannot even accept the premises of the question as posed, just don't post. His question is valid. He wants you to put yourself in an theoretical situation where it is ACCEPTED that he is the right person and has information you need. Don't be such a baby.

 

[Diuretic]

Wrong though.

I know I'm telling you what you know but what the hell. The bombing of Japan was the culmination of a war. We can argue 'til the cows come home about the rightness of the act, given the state of the Japanese military, the nation etc. but it got the attention of the Emperor, the government and the military. The 'education' of Japan was a massive re-building and re-development Call me ethnocentric but it took Japan from being an imperialistic, nationalistic, militaristic, fascist nation to a liberal democracy. That was no bad thing. In terms of general wellbeing Japan and Asia is better off now than it would have been if there had been some sort of accommodation between the Allies and the Japanese government which didn't result in surrender and occupation and Japan had been allowed to continue its imperialistic ways.

 

[HopeandGlory]

Wrong though.

I know I'm telling you what you know but what the hell. The bombing of Japan was the culmination of a war. We can argue 'til the cows come home about the rightness of the act, given the state of the Japanese military, the nation etc. but it got the attention of the Emperor, the government and the military. The 'education' of Japan was a massive re-building and re-development Call me ethnocentric but it took Japan from being an imperialistic, nationalistic, militaristic, fascist nation to a liberal democracy. That was no bad thing. In terms of general wellbeing Japan and Asia is better off now than it would have been if there had been some sort of accommodation between the Allies and the Japanese government which didn't result in surrender and occupation and Japan had been allowed to continue its imperialistic ways.

I agree with you totally. It's a hell of a decision to drop an atomic bomb, but there was really no way the Imperialist Japanese Army would have surrendered until hundreds of thousands more had died. The war would have dragged on for several more months of very bitter fighting.

 

[Annie]

I may be wrong, but if there were no Little boy or fat boy, the US would have won later, with a huge number more dead. These weapons cut the destruction down.

Bottom line, if one wishes to be on the victorious side, one hits with overwhelming force. It may be soldiers, it may be weapons, it may be germs.

 

[Diuretic]

Just one point - the Allies were fighting Japan, not just the US. This is not just me being prickly. There were many Australian Pisoners of War in Japan at the time of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those still alive today can give eyewitness accounts of the mushroom clouds. The effort against the Axis powers was by the Allies, not a single nation.