Torture...Do you approve?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by blankc, Mar 5, 2003.

?

Do you approve of torture?

  1. Yes

    2 vote(s)
    6.7%
  2. No

    20 vote(s)
    66.7%
  3. Yes, if it meets certain criteria.

    7 vote(s)
    23.3%
  4. Other (explain)

    1 vote(s)
    3.3%
  1. Malifics Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    37
    Thread becoming painful

    As thoughtful as this thread has become I think we should focus on conversing not bashing others....I am sure Pumpkin and Tyler will get along in the playground with the rest of the children.......

    Alas, has anyone thought of the women and the children as tortured? I mean look at how the Taliban treats the women and children of their country. Is this considered torture? Or Are we merely speaking of prison.....How about the tribes in Madagascar that beat the women of their tribes to prove loyalties to the boy who is becoming a man? I this torture? What excatly is toture? Other then a process that is or is not socially acceptable??
     
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  3. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    At war with the elephants: Two cents on torture

    Death of an elephant (BBC)

    Warning! This article includes mild description of the torture of an elephant.

    There. I find that disclaimer interesting. Once upon a time, a poster asked me to not repost images of the Dresden firestorm because they were too horrible. While I understand, that's part of the interesting thing. This is an elephant, and it appears there is a war brewing between human folk and elephant folk:
    First off, on a lighter note, I'm brought to mind of an old Garfield sequence in which Jon and Garfield are watching a "killer-lion" movie, and Garfield is sitting there with a "Lion" pennant and a grin on his face. The carnage is too awful; Jon can't look. Finally the people kill the lion. Jon cheers, celebrates. Garfield smiles and notes, "At the gun, the score was Lion forty-two, People one."

    And so it seems: I used that line when an elephant broke loose in Hawaii and rampaged near a shopping mall. At least the elephant got to crush a few cars and attack its trainers before being put down.

    But as Wildlife Trust India noted:
    So what they're talking about essentially is the humane treatment of an elephant held in captivity:
    And that's the reason I bring this up here. There's a red disclaimer at the beginning of this post, and that's all well and fine; I can imagine that people don't want to read about an elephant being mutilated and neglected to death for the crime of being hungry.

    But think of this: That elephant is, essentially, a Prisoner of War.

    The elephant was one of many coming into conflict with human beings to the tune of thirty-five humans dead and unreported (and therefore unknown) elephant casualties.

    So please remember, if this elephant's death disturbs you in any way, that it was a Prisoner of War, an enemy combatant, and unlawful at that.

    What if that was a person?

    What if that was, say, Bin Laden himself? Or, for the war-pigs, Saddam Hussein?

    You know, some of us who have viewed paintings by elephants and are aware that elephants know when one of theirs passes through the gates even hundreds of miles away and have watched elephants pretend reverence for the dead would find this elephant's death to be a murder. But this point is only relevant in the sense that this elephant was treated no worse than some people claim Prisoners of War should be treated.

    I am not without my reasons for disclaiming the news article attached to this post at the outset, and I think anyone who pauses to think about it will understand that. But why? What compels us to see indecency here? What is so discomforting about it? It's good enough for the enemy, right? And now this elephant is the enemy. Too bad about that, but if the elephant didn't want to be the enemy, it should have stayed hungry and out of the way.
    If the torture of an elephant is unsettling, for instance, what of human beings?

    :m:,
    Tiassa

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  5. machaon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    734
    Torture

    The fact that this has even become a debatable issue means that the United States of America exist in name only. But hey, it was only a matter of time anyway.
     
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  7. Xev Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,943
    That's an idiotic statement. A true philosopher never shys away from examining even the most horrifying aspects of the human psyche.

    If you could save 100 people by subjecting one to frightful agony, would you?

    What if it was 1000 people?

    Could you actually torture another human, even with the highest stakes? Or can you only say that you would? Perhaps you fear the subject because some part of you would enjoy having that power over another?

    I don't see how the above questions are limited to any country or period, and I really see no purpose to your post but more America-bashing drivel spewed from the mouth of one who cannot actually think
     
  8. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,574
    Tiassa that was fucking horrible, I know you warned us but damn.
    That is far worse than anything you could ever do to a human because a human can fathom why such a thing is happening, a human has the ability to do wrong and knows the difference in the first place, a human has that reassuring ability to say or at least think "I can't believe you fucking assholes are doing this to me".
    You can argue the death of an animal to be less of a tragedy than a humans(if you want) but no one can honestly say that torturing an animal like this is not as bad as torturing a human, thats the worst story I have ever heard. Elephants love water and are intelligent loving creatures, to degrade one and deprive it of water like this along with the physical pain and extreme confused emotional trauma is truely probably one of the greatest injustices in earths history. Now I hope there is a hell, for the people that did this, they deserve the worst possible torture anyone could think of and even then justice would not have been done efficiently, because again, they did wrong and they would know why they were being tortured.

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    This story makes me want to go out and torture an innocent child. Thats justice.
     
  9. Malifics Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    37
    Another Refreshing statement


    ......I think Xev and many others point has just been proven........is revenge what we seek and why we torture? Therefore your statement condones and encourages the exact part of our human thinking.....barbaric.....cave person like.....yes, lets seek revenge on a human child because we as a species CAN and WILL.

    Humans can own, fight back, think and walk on two legs. We dont need to piss on a bush to show territory we ned to own humans....we need to own EVERYTHING......we need to kill what and when we please....we need to destroy....

    Thank you Dr. You are very human............:_)
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2003
  10. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,574
    and?
    the point I was making is "thats justice" , thats the only human equivalent I can imagine to this tragedy. I stand by that.
     
  11. Malifics Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    37
    Hey Dr

    I hear what you are saying but isn't that the whole game? Listen to yourself and realize that if we did not have this inate desire to control own and kill the elephant woul dnot have been killed nor would we have this very long chat/forum/message.........it IS a tragedy....but one can not say that one form of death is more tragic then another and prove a point of fundmentalism....
     
  12. JoojooSpaceape Burn in hell Hippies Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    498
    Im the only one who said Other?! well i base my opinion on an Eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth, one of the oldest laws ever, coming from the fertile crescent, But still ne of the best.
     
  13. Balder1 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    290
    The torture of the elephant was no tragedy. Its the way the natural world works. The elephant comprehends it no more than it does starving to death in the desert. Animals die. Species adapt. Dr Lou Natic, I hope you were joking. Its your unnatural morality that makes you think that the death of an elephant is more tragic than one of your own species, a species that is far more valuable.

    Revenge is an instinct. It removes a predator of you and your family, and insures your safety. The only problem is that with humans it becomes a neverending cycle. Your father is killed, so you kill the killer. The killer's son kills you. Your brother kills him. His cousin kills your brother. If revenge is held up, then it just causes trouble for everyone. Eventually one side has to be eradicated. Revenge is probably the root of many of our problem's today. Individually, there is a conflict between people on whether to commit revenge and avenge the fallen, or to use your intelligence to overcome that instinct.
     
  14. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,574
    On second thought the equivalent would be doing what was done to the elephant(saw off teeth instead of tusks) to an innocent child who also happened to be born deaf and blind.

    I'm not joking balder, i would never joke about something like this, like I said, you can argue that a humans life is more important(I disagree, but you can) but you can't say torturing an animal is more acceptable than torturing a human. Torture is a HUMAN concept, it has NO place in the natural world and should never have been done to anything that wasn't human. It shouldn't be done to humans either but if we are going to come up with a concept as undeniably evil as torture than we should be the only creature that needs to deal with it.
    What happened here is NOTHING like an elephant dieing of thirst in the desert, you are greatly insulting their intelligence, it knows there are little creatures tieing it up inflicting intense pain on it and depraving it of freedom, it just doesn't know why, they've been wandering about the deserts for ages, they know they might die of thirst but they have the freedom to search for water, thats my biggest problem the drugging and tieing up, its as unnatural as you can get, if they were to attack it with spears and stab it to death while it had the freedom to try and fight back I would be sad but I wouldn't have a huge problem.
    I find it disturbing and mind boggling how someone could think like you balder, it is that humans-are-all-that-matters way of thinking that lead to this tragedy that makes the holocaust seem insignificant.
     
  15. Balder1 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    290
    Well good, at least you would be doing this to a disabled child.

    Oh God, well if you believe that than there's no point in debating anything with you.

    Does the elephant care about the grass that it eats?

    I don't understand that at all. Millions of people tortured insignificant compared to the torture of an elephant?

    I can see what your saying. That humans are the only ones who cause pain solely for their sick pleasure. And that is sick. But its not the inexcusable tragedy that you made it out to be. Its a byproduct of consciousness. Humans can do both good and evil, because of our sentience.
     
  16. Malifics Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    37
    YES!



    This was well put and wonderful! Thank you......However, no one has the RIGHT over another....living is living...revenge is revenge....domination is a "human-ism".

    The elephant had no "reasoning" abilite(sp) to know better.....to not be there.....to move...to avoid.... The HUMAN(s) did know right from wrong....the human(s) DID/DO know that killing is "bad"...... So really, the Human(s) is still at fault. Based on intellegence....we are still evil and the Elephants will live longer....Thank goodness for that because we as a species are killing the entireplanet.......oops wrong thread....
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2003
  17. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,574
    You are both looking at this through a very humanish point of view, studying the psychology behind the minds of the people who did this rather than what the elephant went through and coming to the conclusion that this is no tragedy because "people will be people LOL"

    I can't be bothered with this, all I will say is I respectlessly disagree.
     
  18. Malifics Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    37
    fell a sleep again.......

    Dr. Please bother. As of yet I have not had an oppertunity to discuss anything interesting in theis chat/forum/mesage board. This to me is wonderful. I beleive you are on to something....continue your conversation...dont give up...
     

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