| steven787 said: I hate philosophical hypothetical, especially when they are used to argue against principles by people who use principle to argue against taxes, abortion, government spending, gun restrictions... I think the principle that I, as part of "the people", do not torture or condone torture is pretty important. I'd rather live a life of reason and principle, than doing what ever I have to do to survive. I believe that biological life is not the same thing as spiritual life... of course the ideas behind much conservative thinking is that they are one in the same. That is why they can be against helping poor people or protecting minorities, because it doesn't matter if a person's spirit is broken. That is why they consider a fertilized "egg" to be the same as a living person. That is why they can torture and live with torturing. Of course, this leads to all different types of intentional and unintentional discrimination. That a person who is born poor doesn't deserve the same educational opportunities, that a minority is inferior, that a woman's physical or mental health is less important than a potentially living person, that their ideology is better so it is okay to kill civilians, or that one person's life is worthless (an suspected terrorist?). I'd rather die than torture someone. I'd rather have our country attacked than have our country torture. It's a choice of maybe being murdered or definitely committing suicide. With out the IDEA of America, than the United States wouldn't be worth anything. If a serious majority of Americans ever actually starts supporting torture, the United States is already dead. Read my new sig. |
Ok, well your opening starts out by setting a fallacy as the basis for the debate. You're setting a framework for the discussion whereby a person who argues for torture or water-boarding is arguing against principles, and the person arguing against same is arguing for principles. This is patently ridiculous since it's pretty clear both sides are basing their argument in principles, it's the correct prioritization of those principles that is at the heart of the debate. I prioritize by saying the lives of many people comes before the life, let alone mental health, of one person. That's not even addressing the innocense or guilt of the individuals in question.
Based on what you're saying, in a "You start in the middle, to the left you can save 1 person from being waterboarded or to the right you can save 500 from death, not enough time for both! zomg" scenario you would choose the 500 people...but as soon as you have the proposition phrased such that you're giving the order to waterboard or not to waterboard, then your against it. But I say they are the same scenario, you're in a position to make the exact same choice "allow or don't allow" waterboarding to occur, if you do allow you can save lives, if you don't allow people will die. It's a simple difference in phrasing. (My apologies, I know you hate the hypotheticals but they are a valid form of argument, and happen to be one of the few experiments we can do in this forum so I don't see why they should be ruled out.)
Your opening fallacy is again reused in your line about your rather having a a life of reason and principle. The very debate is about which course of action is more reasoned and principled, you're begging the question to pre-suppose it as part of your argument. And the bolded part...well that's nonsense, and the rest of the paragraph is pretty unrelated to the point to begin with. I hope your argument doesn't rely on the supposition that all conservatives are against helping poor people and "protecting" minorities, and if it doesn't rely on it, as I suspect it probably doesn't, then we should probably keep this to the issue at hand so the scope of the discussion doesn't get out of hand.
As for choosing to die rather than torture, and letting the country get attacked rather than torture: Fair enough, I can understand that argument (even if I don't completely agree) and I too think torture is distasteful. But the issue is whether waterboarding is torture, you can't just assume your position on the matter is correct and then use that as an argument.
Your close is an interesting bit of idealism, and I can sympathize to a degree with the ideal. But I really don't see how torture is the magic bullet that kills the idealistic america. I think it's an emotional argument from an emotional political position, but I also think it's a position that is seriously lacking in logical reasoning and principles the same as you think of my position.
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