[extropy-chat] Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment

[Samantha Atkins]

On Dec 20, 2005, at 10:48 PM, J. Andrew Rogers wrote:

>
> On Dec 20, 2005, at 3:32 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote:
>> That is the biggest BS excuse for apathy I have ever heard.
>
>
> You saying so does not make it so.

Real torture is being done by US forces in Iraq and by our CIA.  Do  
you deny this is so?

>
> The issues have been so slathered in BS that the stink makes people  
> walk away in disgust rather than spending the time to sort turds,  
> digging through them for a nugget of something or other (maybe even  
> "truth" on occasion).  Everyone is a "terrorist", everything is  
> "torture", conspiracies abound, and it is always, invariably  
> someone else's fault.  Who has the time to dive into that mess?  It  
> is hard not to have an ignorant opinion on these issues, even when  
> one tries to study them.

Throwing up our hands and not bothering to decide if torture, what  
you yourself would cosinder torture if you were the target, is being  
committed is apathy.  The press has given quite a few examples of  
what is meant by torture.  I would consider use of "water boards" to  
be torture for instance.   I would also consider shipping of  
detainees to countries that practice no bones about it torture to be  
use of torture.  What about you?

I do agree that "terrorism" has been inflated far beyond anything  
meaningful.

- samantha