16 November 2011

Torture and American Mind-set

I am an Australian and I do not follow American election news closely. So I will take the following quote from Atheist Ethicist as accurate:

Two Republican candidates for President - Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann - said in a recent debate that they do not consider waterboarding to be torture and would return to the practice of waterboarding prisoners if they were President.

Two Republican candidates said that they opposed waterboarding - Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman.

A number of people raised objections to waterboarding and torture following the debate, almost all of which can be put into two categories:

Category 1 - It makes America look bad.

Category 2 - It doesn't work. [Alonzo Fyfe]

Fyfe correctly pointed out that these were "stupid reasons to oppose torture." As he explained adeptly, a simple application of moral golden rule (do not do what you would not want other to yourself) would have come to the conclusion that torture of prisoners are not acceptable. These political "leaders" would be happy to send other's children to battlefield but not theirs. When other's were tortured, they do not care. The lack moral stance of the leadership of USA is an indication of the inevitable fall of this nation. Mere military strength can only get a nation this far. Roman Empire collapsed because it ran out of captives to enslave. For USA to be relevant in the future, a quick turn-around is needed, but I cannot see any coming anytime soon. This is not good.

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