| steven787 said: Usually I feel as if people oversimplify arguments. In this case, you are trying to overcomplicate something to justify horrendous behavior. |
Indeed, not to mention the majority of the examples sqrl listed for cruel and unusual punishment were outlawed before the 20th century. Cruel and unusual punishment has been an evolving standard and has a much broader definition than it did even at the beginning of this century. Wikipedia's extent of getting into the cruel and unusual punishment issue is cursory at best and doesn't provide the breadth or rigor of analysis that the court system has used on the issue. Using it as a valid source on this issue is questionable at best.
And death penalty punishments are a completely separate issue than torture methods. Courts do not treat them the same, so saying that courts allow one isn't a valid defense to say that they should allow the other.
Its not begging the question whether or not these things can be extended to non-citizens. Do you think the American people would stand by if waterboarding was used on domestic citizens in police stations as part of interrogation proceedings? Even the military is not allowed to use waterboarding according to the Army Field Manual. Its completely relevant.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
