In cases with murderers, rapists, kidnappers, child molesters, etc... Would you be in favor of torture or opposed?
Sadly, in the Western world, there is a form of "politically correct" torture, then there is the effective means of torture.
The PC version of torture is the current usage. You want information from a specific source, you use methods to try to extract that information directly from the source. That is, as pointed out before, very inconsistent. I wouldn't say it's completely ineffective because different people have different backgrounds, different training and different tolerances for pain.
The non PC version of torture is extremely effective. If Otis had key information I needed to save hundreds of thousands of American lives, I'd calmly have him tied to a chair. Then I'd strangle his wife with piano wire, letting him hear her scream and beg for her life. Then I'd bring in his child and point out that he has two choices. Tell me what I want to know in a way I can verify ( i.e. vetting) or watch me kill his kid in front of him. If he has more than one child, the better the relative odds of breaking him, since I'm able to execute one child and preserve the other as the threat.
One of the most effective means of actually stopping terrorists is never used. One thing about these suicide bombers and people willing to trade their lives to inflict mass destruction on America is they are told their families will be protected and provided for, usually for life. Simply make it a blanket policy that any terrorist caught will have his entire bloodline executed from the face of the Earth, you'd see far fewer people willing to roll that dice. Want to crash a plane into a building? That's your choice. Now your wife dies, your kids, your uncle, your brothers, your parents, your cousins, every single person carrying your blood is held down and takes two to the back of the head.
The problem is not that our current conception of "torture" is extreme, the reality is it simply isn't extreme enough.
The Romans spilled so much blood in Carthage and then salted the Earth behind them so nothing would grow. They understood the policy of scorched Earth.
Everyone's a tough guy until they hear their children screaming in front of them, begging for their lives, desperately calling for their parents to help them.
One of the biggest problems I see with Americans is the culture of entitlement, but part of that is the entitlement that comes with the validation of one's feelings. Americans are taught that their feelings matter ALL THE TIME. One of the benefits ( and likely drawbacks) of having to live, work and operate outside of the Western world is that you learn your feelings don't really matter at all. No one cares how you feel. What you feel isn't going to change the world. And plenty of places, unlike the US, you can and will be punished for expressing those feelings.
If Otis knows where I can find a cell of terrorists planning to attack the US ( i.e. the Jack Bauer scenario), it doesn't matter what I feel about my view of torture, my view on kids, my view on crime and punishment, my view on politics), in the end, it's either going to come down to his family dying or millions of Americans dying. In that case, I'd strangle his wife and wouldn't hesitate to shoot his kid in the back of the head and then go eat a sandwich if that's what it took to save lives for what I saw as the greater good. Some people have the capacity to separate those things, some don't. I can only speak for me, but if I was living in a city under threat of attack, I'd rather have employed the folks who can separate what they feel from what needs to be done.
The funny thing about liberals is I find they are the biggest racists and the biggest bigots and the most intolerant when it comes to their neighborhoods and their kids. Like I always said, you want to find a racist in this country, find a homeowner or find a parent. People are surprisingly non liberal when the issue who lives next door or who is associating with their kids no matter how much horse #### they spout about any political issue otherwise.
Take the people who say torture is absolute bad. Then put their children in a city under threat of real attack. Then put them in a locked room with someone who knows how to stop the attack but won't give up the information. See how liberal they are then when a plane crashes into a building with their kid in it. Or it's a chemical attack. Or a suitcase nuke. You would be surprised at how many bleeding heart card carrying liberals here would pick up a screwdriver and start carving into someone when it's their kid, their family, the things they value right on the line.
The morally upright here in America are only so because someone spilled blood for them and they don't have to see it up close, don't have to face it, don't have to own it. But just quit pretending at some point, quit holding onto some school boy idea that the American lifestyle you live is built on perfect ideals and West Wing type schmaltz. You can eat your steak and watch the NFL on a big screen because someone split blood to make sure you can have it. The privileges in this country that most take for granted is paid for in suffering by people all over the world.
Most of you are middle age, middle class entitled selfish white males in America who aren't grateful for jack #### in life. Try seeing the rest of the world, not the cozy Westernized tourist spots, but the real dark and brutal and cold hard world out there. But take away your hot showers, cut off the supplies to your grocery stores, cease emergency services for a while, and see how fast you descend into a bunch of vicious animals.
Torture works, just not the Westernized limp wristed version of it that you liberal jack offs like to argue about.
For what it's worth, to protect me and mine, if it came to it, I wouldn't just slaughter every terrorist on the globe, I'd also lay waste to all of you too. Functionally, to preserve the people I care about, if it came down to it, I'd gladly cut the throats of every last person here. And anyone who would do less for their loved ones, I wouldn't see them a morally upright, I'd just see them as culled off from the herd for simply lacking the ability to adapt to survive. You aren't moral, you are short necked giraffe living in a soft culture and country that enables your ignorance to how the world actually functions.
