akuma587 on 25 April 2009
HappySqurriel said:
... because the victors of a war choose the rules their former opponents are judged by?
On top of that, what we think is appropriate at one point in time (or place) may not be appropriate at another time (or place) ... consider how adulterers and homosexuals were treated at different times throughout history, or how they are treated in different parts of the world.
What I was actually refering to is how people are "outraged" that the military uses methods like forcing people to listen to Barney songs and Nine inch Nails as a way to encourage people to give out information that could save hundreds or thousands of lives. Personally, I find it somewhat disturbing that the same people who are entirely unwilling to allow any minor discomfort to people who's only goal is to kill them because it violates "human rights" are the same people entirely willing to ignore the horrible "human rights" records of dozens of countries because it suits their current political goals.
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It is good that you point out that it is people in power who define what is right and wrong historically rather than the rest of society. So how do you think people will look back on us waterboarding people 50 years from now?
Discriminating against people is in now way shape or form the same as torturing people. Those are certainly not the same types of social permissibility we are talking about. Moving back towards waterboarding infringes on people's rights whereas moving away from discrimination involves protecting people's rights. That is like admitting we are turning the human rights' clock backwards.
And show me evidence of any other law enforcement technique or interrogation activity commonly used now that was impermissible 60 years ago. If anything, our standards are much higher now than they were then.
Edit: What about when those artists say that they don't want their songs to be used for those purposes? Trent Reznor was very upset when he heard his music was being used for that, so was the writer of the Sesame Street music, so was the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine. I find it ironic that the government will prosecute people for downloading songs illegally but has no problem using artist's music in ways they were never intended to be used and ways that they actively protest.
Man, for how much you guys complain about the government, you sure are willing to let the government get away with a lot in this department.
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
