akuma587 said:
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.
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So you call stoning homosexual people and Adulterers in Iran "discrimination"?
The rights an artist has over their music are very well defined, and being that the government didn't distribute the music, make claims about authorship, or generate revenue from it there is really nothing they can do about it.
Now, as I said before, I think that waterboarding is probably an inappropriate interogation methodology but if there was any long term "damage" done by waterboarding I highly doubt that the military would force their soldiers to undergo it in special ops training ...
The problem the military faces is that the freedoms granted to citizens (and even people who are illegally in the country) make it very difficult to protect them from the people who want do harm them, and about the only way the military can keep them safe is to have good intelligence in order to be one step ahead of their opponents. In this already difficult task I am willing to grant them some leeway to do things that I have personally experienced and (while uncomfortable) are not that bad ... Getting the sensation of drowning, listening to repetitive music over and over, and even being awake for 20 hours a day is not that bad.
