The Sodium Boat
Mar. 24th, 2006 03:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rain_gryphonIt would seem that the majority of Americans do in fact approve of torturing terrorists if it might yield useful information.
15% Often
31% Sometimes
17% Rarely
32% Never
5% Don’t know/refused
It would be interesting to see the numbers from Europe. I suspect they're slightly lower, but not by much.
*****
Swastikaphobia reaches new heights of retardation. This is an excellent page of early WWII aircraft markings, including a ton of cool German, Italian and Hungarian squadron insignia. Some fellow has compiled these into photoshop files, and made them available at no charge for model builders to print decals from. It's obviously a labour of love. All of the swastikas are blurred out in the preview mode, though, to "comply with the laws of some countries". It's frankly Orwellian when you can't even have a swastika on a model of a WWII airplane.
One's tempted to speculate whether certain parties still believe in the occult power of Nazi insignia and regalia. That's certainly how the swastika is being treated, as an item that has power in and of itself.
Bizarrely enough, the actual Fasces seems to be unobjectionable - there're several examples of those. The animus is directed at the swastika in particular, rather than fascist or Nazi symbols in general.
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Little Ponies each have a symbol on their butt that matches their personality. I've wondered before whether the Pony's personality drives the symbol, or if the symbol drives the personality. If it were the latter, one could conceivably go around Ponyland plastering swastika decals on their heinies, and create an instant army of Nazi Ponies.
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Another Australian flying car sighting. When you look carefully at the outline and shadow, it looks narrower than the other cars, and seems to have a sort of hump in the middle. Something's going on here.
*****
Attack of the Mutant Foxes!
15% Often
31% Sometimes
17% Rarely
32% Never
5% Don’t know/refused
It would be interesting to see the numbers from Europe. I suspect they're slightly lower, but not by much.
*****
Swastikaphobia reaches new heights of retardation. This is an excellent page of early WWII aircraft markings, including a ton of cool German, Italian and Hungarian squadron insignia. Some fellow has compiled these into photoshop files, and made them available at no charge for model builders to print decals from. It's obviously a labour of love. All of the swastikas are blurred out in the preview mode, though, to "comply with the laws of some countries". It's frankly Orwellian when you can't even have a swastika on a model of a WWII airplane.
One's tempted to speculate whether certain parties still believe in the occult power of Nazi insignia and regalia. That's certainly how the swastika is being treated, as an item that has power in and of itself.
Bizarrely enough, the actual Fasces seems to be unobjectionable - there're several examples of those. The animus is directed at the swastika in particular, rather than fascist or Nazi symbols in general.
*****
Little Ponies each have a symbol on their butt that matches their personality. I've wondered before whether the Pony's personality drives the symbol, or if the symbol drives the personality. If it were the latter, one could conceivably go around Ponyland plastering swastika decals on their heinies, and create an instant army of Nazi Ponies.
*****
Another Australian flying car sighting. When you look carefully at the outline and shadow, it looks narrower than the other cars, and seems to have a sort of hump in the middle. Something's going on here.
*****
Attack of the Mutant Foxes!
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 10:09 am (UTC)Wonderfuel, that's the world I wanna hear!
no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 12:04 pm (UTC)I haven't seen such a detailed poll, but there was one in December simply asking "do you think torture is ever justified?" - so people who answered "rarely" in the poll you quote would probably find themselves saying "no", and the "yes" vote was 38% in the US, 30% in the UK, and also around 30% in both France and Germany.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-25 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-25 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-25 09:30 am (UTC)The failure of American intelligence can be laid largely (although not entirely) at Jimmy Carter's feet. He was the one who mandated the use of electronic intelligence over human intelligence for moral reasons (ie, humint often involves coercion, blackmail, etc). We're still rebuilding from that.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-26 02:41 am (UTC)I find it amusing that people who support torture (as if torture is a good thing) are quick to deny that it has ever been used (as if torture is a bad thing). But neither supporting torture, nor denying that it has been used, is a valid viewpoint.
You should be happy it has been used on terrorists, because you support the use of torture on terrorists!
no subject
Date: 2006-03-26 02:51 am (UTC)I would no more support rules requiring terrorists to be tortured than I can support rules prohibiting their torture. Torture is a tool. Its use should be at the discretion of the interrogator.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-26 03:50 am (UTC)But prisoners have died in Abu Graib as a result of this form of maltreatment. And even in those that it doesn't kill, it caused great discomfort and/or pain. If you don't call painful mistreatment of a prisoner so severe that it can result in death "torture", then you are removing all meaning from that word wrt the way most English-speaking people use the word most of the time. Whatever you call it, it is in every way morally and ethically evil, and should be banned by every civilised society.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-26 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-26 05:50 am (UTC)The fact that the world is not paved with Nerf is proof that the devil exists and moves on the face of the Earth. :-P
You don't have a choice between torturing terrorists OR letting innocent people die. You have made a choice of torturing potentially innocent people AND letting innocent people die, because the information you get from torture is unreliable.
But I guess the stick is the USA's only remaining avenue since it has rendered its carrot inedible by shoving it you know where. Every arab who has been suckered by their offers of financial rewards for information on Osama's whereabouts has been jailed (because if they had information, they must have something to do with him).
And think of it this way - would you tell the truth if you were being tortured by an arab? I wouldn't. I'd bullshit more than a herd of cattle. I'd warn that such and such a thing was going to happen in a couple of months, and when it didn't, I'd say that obviously they had an informant in their ranks - and then my former interrogators would get tortured until they found the mole...
America has been using torture. And its intelligence info has sucked. The link between the two is obvious. It's not human nature to be honest when given negative reinforcement.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-25 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-25 04:20 am (UTC)