Thomas Paine on Torture

Here's another quote from the great Thomas Paine... something to think on with reference to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and numerous other places and events...

"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

 

Here Here. it seems that some of my fellow country men have forgotten what they were taught. The ends dont justify the means. Might doesnt make right. You dont fight fire with fire. But it seems this administration cannot out smart even fire. C'mon old man, blast away.

 

TORTURE DOESN'T EXIST! It never did and never will in this country. It is just a bunch of scientists making a living off of playing up it's existence. There is no proof that it has ever happened and if proof was ever "manufactured" that it did happen, it was just the Left-wing media trying to get us to hate the Bush administration. Only the tree-huggers and Greenies want us to believe in torture because it furthers their goals of giving all of our money to the poor after it was taken from the rich. Finally, tortute is against the laws of this country therefore it can not exist. It is even in the constitution. Only our enemies use torture and they are bad, we are good so there is no way we can use torture. Case closed because I said so. Facts are facts BTW.

OLDDANMIDASJWEVANSVBONEDIGGER...

 

HAHAHA. good for you. thanks, I needed that.

 

I thought you said you had your 'jimmy' to play with? What do you need with this?:rolling:

 

Thomas Paine had to deal with suicide bombers, car bombs, and ied's. No. okay then, shut it. Sometimes the ends justifies the means, besides the fact that until we're hooking up electodes to their giblets and putting out their eyes, instead of sleep deprivation and yelling then you can call it torture.

 

And so ends the American Republic. A lot of people in power agree with you, as if they needed the extra push.

 

Thats about what I expected from you. By now you must realize why you are so alone.

 

The ends never justify the means, please look up the Nuremburg trials to realise this is true. While I say this I can understand the reasoning behind the thought process, to knowingly sit back and do nothing while someone in your care has information that could save lives is soul destroying. But where do you draw the line.
What is torture, is it ok to shove someone around shout at them, deprive them of sleep, rough thewm up a bit. How about administer chemicals and ataching electrodes to there genitalia, removing finger nails & teeth? or perhaps rape & abuse of children & family members in front of them.
You decided what is ok

 

You're assuming they have information. I read somewhere that some of those ragheads in those prison photos were released after the story broke. So if they had something on those guys, I doubt they'd let 'em go. and I agree De. I posred it before; the end never justifies the means. Might doesnt make right. And you dont fight fire with fire. Didnt any of you believers in torture read 'The Oxbow incident'?

 

No Craig I was posing a theoretical question not assuming anything at all, and at the same time pointing out that I can understand the thought process to a degree without condoning it.

 

Hear Hear!

 

Yea. I understand it inspite of what old man uh dan thinks. But its a knee- jerk reaction, when you hear of the enemy doing barbarous acts to fellow country men. I wasnt pointing you out as assuming anything. I was talking about those doing the torturing

 

Ah my bad sorry :hug:

 

I had to do a little research to recall the theme of the book. I found this interesting review by Alan Mills (Chicago, Illinois USA)

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THE OXBOW INCIDENT
Many are only familiar with this book through the screen adaptation starring Henry Fonda. While a good movie, the book has so much more. Forget the movie; read the book.

Clark sets his book in the old west--immediately post civil war. He takes a typical western scenario--a rash of cattle rustling in an isolated town cries out for "self-help" justice by the ranchers who are being driven to bankruptcy. Clark then turns this well worn premise inside out and uses it as a foundation on which to build a novel which explores what justice means and whether it can ever be implemented outside of established rules and procedures, how one acts justly as part of a group, and the causes of mob violence.

Written in the 1940's, the Ox Bow Incident has clear implications for what was then a rash of lynchings across the South (and all too many in what we today think of as the "North--Illinois, for example). Clark brings this issue into the novel by giving a Black character a leading role (and having him speak as one of the voices of reason).

Read today, the Ox Bow Incident remains highly relevant. Clark's powerful examination of the dangers of justice without process applies equally well to current events in Guantanimo and Abu Grahib as it did to lynching in the forties, and frontier justice in the 1880's.

This is a book which should be read by anyone interested in gang violence, abuses in the military, national security, lynching, and human nature in general.

Books become classics because they have something interesting to say about human beings. The Ox Bow Incident deserves its nomination as a classic, and should be much more widely read than it is.
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Thanks for the book suggestion Craig! I'm going to try to find a copy of this.

 

Thomas Paine was man whom not get much credit for his writing of 18th century by 20th century. If you read of his writing - like Common Sense you know this guy have real brilliance uncommon of that time. In many way he more like more radical M K Gandhi in sense of make enemy feel shame.

 

Thomas Paine!

Exactly so! Thank you Krasnaya. Yes, I and many others feel that Thomas Paine has been disregarded for too long. Hi brilliant insights into way a free people can and should govern themselves were central to the creation of the United States of America. He has been criticized and ignored in this country largely because of his later writings on the subject of religion... particularly the essay THE AGE OF REASON. Paine thought that the revolution in politics would quickly be followed by a revolution in religion that would bring down the professional priestly class and return liberty to religious thought. The priestcraft however was able to successfully organize so as to brand Paine as an evil, but they were in a sticky situation because he was so highly regarded politically. The result was that he was simply forgotten, written out of many of the history books, or demoted to a minor figure.

 

If and only IF slowly chopping off the finger's or ears and dripping molten silver into the mouth of known terrorists (all these acts were done for the same reasons in the not too past) deters or stops terrorist acts elswhere I'm alll for it and would make a donation to their non-profit fund if I knew what it was.

 

Then you would (and perhaps will) help to usher in a totalitarian police state complete with gestapo and thought police and universal surveillance of every citizen. When the concentration camps in rural Oklahoma open their doors to the cattle cars full of known liberals, then I'm sure you will be able to pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

 

^^^ I think inorder to defend this nation from those who would do it and us harm, then so-be-it. Now as far as having cattle-cars full of liberals I doubt it because just a little over 100 years ago there were those individuals who could whistle dixie and the battle-hymn of the republic with equal enthusiasm when necessary... Chuckle, they would simply hide all their liberal regalia in a secret crawl space under the floor or in the barn.