{"id":49002,"date":"2014-12-17T08:21:38","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T15:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/17\/the-ticking-time-bomb-defense.html"},"modified":"2014-12-17T08:21:38","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T15:21:38","slug":"the-ticking-time-bomb-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/17\/the-ticking-time-bomb-defense.html","title":{"rendered":"The Ticking Time-Bomb Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sorry, all, I keep harping on the subject and I'm, sure it's getting dull even to folk who agree with me. But this post does some fine work at debunking the whole "Torture is okay because some day there might be a nuclear bomb that can only be stopped by torturing some evil terrorist dude."<\/p>\n

This hypothetical is very much exactly that (no, none of the guys we tortured was tortured because of a ticking time-bomb), yet it is then extended down that infamous slippery slope to "So if a greater evil can be averted a lesser evil it' all just dandy-fine." Which it's not (it's still evil<\/i> by definition) and it assumes that we know that there is a particular greater evil that can and will be stopped (vs. innocent shlubs that we know we tortured "by accident").<\/p>\n

The problem is, where does that slippery slope stop? If it's okay to waterboard someone because you think he might have information that might eventually lead to the apprehension or killing of a big wig terrorist, is it okay to waterboard someone because you think he might have information that might eventually lead to the apprehension or killing of a small potatoes terrorist? Or that might eventually lead to preventing someone being shot? Or that might eventually lead to keeping a few kilos of cocaine off the street? Or that might eventually prevent someone from cheating on their income taxes? Or parking in a no parking zone? How do we as a country decide how much pain and injury is acceptable to inflict in order to possibly avert some future transgression?<\/p>\n

If not waterboarding then how about "the third degree" and a rubber hose? How about tazing a guy a few times because he might give up the name of his drug dealer? How about just letting the cops break a few ribs or fingers to teach a guys a lesson so he won't offend again? Literally, where does it stop, and on what rational basis?<\/p>\n

"Oh, yeah, Dave? So what would you<\/i> do in the case of a ticking time-bomb scenario? What would you do if the kidnapper had your daughter stashed somewhere and he was tied up in a chair in front of you?"<\/p>\n

I don't know, because those are scenarios beyond my ken, so incredibly unlikely that we might as well be talking about what I would do in case of a Martian invasion. Extending my imagination, though, it's altogether possible that I would<\/i> resort to violence as a last (not first) resort. Out of anger, out of fear, or out of a pragmatic choice of, if everything else fails, trying to inflict some pain might possibly get the information needed. I might just do that.<\/p>\n

But you know what I wouldn't do? I wouldn't pretend that it was an heroic act, or that it wasn't illegal or immoral because, well, after all, sometimes you have to do a lesser evil to avert a greater one. I'd do what I'd do, then I'd admit my wrongdoing and throw myself on the mercy of the court. Because what I would be doing would be illegal<\/i> and wrong,<\/i> and institutionalizing those choices as viable, legitimate options would be a very bad idea.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nThe ‘Ticking Time-Bomb’ Defense of Torture Is Evasive and Irrelevant<\/a><\/span>
\nProminent apologists for harsh CIA interrogations keep invoking a scenario that everyone agrees never happened.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorry, all, I keep harping on the subject and I'm, sure it's getting dull even to folk who agree with me. But this post does some fine work at debunking the whole "Torture is okay because some day there might be a nuclear bomb that can only be stopped by torturing some evil terrorist dude." … Continue reading “The Ticking Time-Bomb Defense”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":48948,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/15\/dick-cheney-presents-the-slippery-slope-of-torture.html","url_meta":{"origin":49002,"position":0},"title":"Dick Cheney presents the slippery slope of torture","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 15-Dec-14 7:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"Granted that the Bush Administration was noteworthy for never, ever, admitting it had made a mistake, this particular article on Dick Cheney's current attitude -- as given on \"Face the Nation\" yesterday -- is appalling. In short, real torture was the killing of 3,000 people on 9\/11, so if it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13312,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/25\/do_extreme_cases_justify.html","url_meta":{"origin":49002,"position":1},"title":"Do extreme cases justify extreme action?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 25-Jan-09 10:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Mike the Mad Biologist offers admiration for Eric Holder resisting giving in on the \"ticking time bomb justifies torture\" scenario. The exchange was helpful in learning about both the senator...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16893,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/11\/unblogged-bits-for-thu-11-mar-2010-801pm.html","url_meta":{"origin":49002,"position":2},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Thu, 11 Mar 2010, 8:01PM","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 11-Mar-10 6:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... CNN \"geek anthem\" post is implausibly similar to scrappy blogger's earlier article - But remember -- Big Media is always the victim of Evil Bloggers and Pirates. 0-day exploits for IE flaw another reason\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128627,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/06\/on-the-slippery-slope-of-time-travel.html","url_meta":{"origin":49002,"position":3},"title":"On the Slippery Slope of Time Travel","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 6-Nov-15 11:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Nobody can kill just one.(Original: http:\/\/smbc-comics.com\/index.php?id=3918) \u00a0 View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32939,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/28\/fodder-for-the-slippery-slope-crowd.html","url_meta":{"origin":49002,"position":4},"title":"Fodder for the "Slippery Slope" crowd","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 28-Mar-13 6:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm sure this will be trumpeted through the anti-marriage equality crowds as a demonstration of how if you legalize gay marriage, the next thing you know people will be marrying their yard furniture\u00a0or something. \u00a0On the other hand, it may cause some folks to say, \"Well, why not?\"Reshared post from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30119,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/07\/ticking-off-the-laundry-list-of-obligatory-speech-references.html","url_meta":{"origin":49002,"position":5},"title":"Ticking off the Laundry List of Obligatory Speech References","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 7-Sep-12 4:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I have to give Romney some defending\u00a0here -- the idea that if he doesn't explicitly call out US troops for praise in a big speech means that he's an unpatriotic and evil politician who hates all our men and women in uniform is asinine. \u00a0It calls to mine the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}