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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/18/2009 : 05:32:03
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Yes I can, too. In fact, I'm a little surprised that he, or some other Republican douche, didn't come up with it sooner. Giving Some Love to the Inquisition
By Robert Parry
May 16, 2009
At a Senate hearing this past week, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, rallied to the defense of ex-President George W. Bush's torture techniques by implicitly endorsing the Spanish Inquisition's brutal treatment of Jews, Muslims, Protestants and other alleged heretics from the 15th to 17th centuries.
One of the reasons these techniques have been used for about 500 years is that they work, Graham said on May 13 in the latest Republican justification of Bush's authorization of tactics such as forced nudity, sleep deprivation, painful stress positions and the near-drowning of waterboarding.
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What Graham, et al. fail to realize is that the Inquisition wasn't about getting information, but punishing heretics. Being too stupid to read history, he uses it as an apologetic.
Hey, you Catalanky guys, when are you going to give this contemptible cretin the boot?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 05/18/2009 : 05:44:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Yes I can, too. In fact, I'm a little surprised that he, or some other Republican douche, didn't come up with it sooner. Giving Some Love to the Inquisition
By Robert Parry
May 16, 2009
At a Senate hearing this past week, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, rallied to the defense of ex-President George W. Bush's torture techniques by implicitly endorsing the Spanish Inquisition's brutal treatment of Jews, Muslims, Protestants and other alleged heretics from the 15th to 17th centuries.
One of the reasons these techniques have been used for about 500 years is that they work, Graham said on May 13 in the latest Republican justification of Bush's authorization of tactics such as forced nudity, sleep deprivation, painful stress positions and the near-drowning of waterboarding.
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What Graham, et al. fail to realize is that the Inquisition wasn't about getting information, but punishing heretics. Being too stupid to read history, he uses it as an apologetic.
Hey, you Catalanky guys, when are you going to give this contemptible cretin the boot?
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Yeah, "these techniques" worked so well during the Spanish Inquisition from 1478 (and onward until 1834) that whole sub-populations of "secret Jews" (Marranos) and "secret Moors" (Moriscos) continued to exist in the guise of pious Catholics for centuries, in both Spain and Portugal.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/18/2009 07:12:21 |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 20:13:21 [Permalink]
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What in that implicitly endorses the Inquisition? It was not by any means the only case in which such techniques have been used in the past 500 years.
If you take the statement to mean that it always works and always has worked, I guess you could say his statement implies the Inquisition only received true confessions, which still would not mean he "endorses" it. I agree lots of things work in a pragmatic sense that I would still oppose in a moral sense. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
| Edited by - Machi4velli on 05/18/2009 20:16:12 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 20:32:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Machi4velli
What in that implicitly endorses the Inquisition? It was not by any means the only case in which such techniques have been used in the past 500 years.
If you take the statement to mean that it always works and always has worked, I guess you could say his statement implies the Inquisition only received true confessions, which still would not mean he "endorses" it. I agree lots of things work in a pragmatic sense that I would still oppose in a moral sense. |
Well, if Lindsey Graham hadn't clarified what he was talking about by mentioning "500 years" (a dead-on reference to early Spanish Inquisition at the time of the Reconquista), he indeed wouldn't have been endorsing the Inquisition's techniques specifically, but only the efficacy of torture by any and all brutal regimes. Not that this would have been any better.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/18/2009 20:35:26 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 22:08:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Machi4velli
What in that implicitly endorses the Inquisition? It was not by any means the only case in which such techniques have been used in the past 500 years.
If you take the statement to mean that it always works and always has worked, I guess you could say his statement implies the Inquisition only received true confessions, which still would not mean he "endorses" it. I agree lots of things work in a pragmatic sense that I would still oppose in a moral sense.
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He said that torture "works". That is an endorsement of torture.
That alone should be enough for anyone to call this idiot out.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 22:22:45 [Permalink]
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When discussing matters of American treatment of detainees, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition to be brought up as a shining example.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/19/2009 03:43:05 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/19/2009 : 03:27:54 [Permalink]
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On a related matter: | This past week, there were several reports discussing Cheney's role in Bush's torture program. Alone they may not be considered sufficient to convict him, but this is just one week. I constructed a little timeline of what we learned this week. These reports indicate more key documents will be released, and provide a good starting point of witnesses for the special prosecutor to question. Now that it is clear that torture was used to fabricate evidence to support Bush's illegal war in Iraq, more connections will be drawn between the dots from years ago and today. |
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 05/19/2009 : 05:07:30 [Permalink]
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That became too disturbing to read, but I finished it. My hope right now is that the Republicans (Newt Gingrich) get more than they want from the Truth Commission they are demanding to look into what Pelosi did or didn't know. Even though we have big economic problems I'd say that the Democrats should grow another pair and give the Republicans a Truth Commission on all the torture activites during the previous administration.
Some one at a very high level Dick Chenney
needs to go to jail. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/19/2009 : 09:45:41 [Permalink]
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Actually, I was thinking about it last night (even woke up in the middle of the night at the realization): torture DOES work.
Sure, it does not work as a reliable source of information, we have many people agreeing with that.
But it works the way the inquisition used it: to extract confessions.
Of course, the confessions are often bogus, anything to make the torture stop, and that's why it is not a reliable source of information. But the inquisition did not care.
The interesting bit about the inquisitors is that, in many cases, they were entitled to the properties of their victim. Their objective, therefore, was to get a confession. It was not so much so that they could judge their victim guilty, she -it was most often a she- was guilty the minute she came under investigation, but that way, they could get her to give the name of other victims and more money to grab.
Similarly, when torture was used during the Soviet purges, or during the Vietnam war to extract confession. It was not to verify the accusations, the torturers knew their accusations were fanciful. It was purely for propaganda purposes, to support the lies.
And, once again, when the Bush administration (we have proof of Cheney and Rumsfeld's involvement) ordered to waterboard Abu Zubaydah 83 times and Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times, asking bout the relationship between al Qaida and Iraq, they were not interested about the truth about the matter.
In fact, odds are, they knew that such links did not exist.
They just wanted the prisoners to give up and make up some claims that they could then exploit.
It was cynical and cold blooded and ultimately lead to the invasion of Iraq and the death of thousands of American soldiers.
I am convinced that no serious prosecution is ever going to come out of this mess and that is a real shame. These people were vicious and vile and concerned only with their self-interest. They act without consideration for the laws of the country and that of common decency, persuaded that their privileged status put them above them. It's terrible that they were most probably right... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/22/2009 : 07:07:23 [Permalink]
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| More on the piece of s***t |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 05/22/2009 : 13:31:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
And, once again, when the Bush administration (we have proof of Cheney and Rumsfeld's involvement) ordered to waterboard Abu Zubaydah 83 times and Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times, asking bout the relationship between al Qaida and Iraq, they were not interested about the truth about the matter. |
I seem to recall a Red Cross report where Khalid Sheik Mohamed was interviewed and claimed to have been water boarded 5 times. This number, 183, seems ridiculous. Where does it come from? |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 05/22/2009 : 14:05:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
It was cynical and cold blooded and ultimately lead to the invasion of Iraq and the death of thousands of American soldiers.
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Not counting the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/22/2009 : 14:18:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Mycroft
Originally posted by Simon
And, once again, when the Bush administration (we have proof of Cheney and Rumsfeld's involvement) ordered to waterboard Abu Zubaydah 83 times and Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times, asking bout the relationship between al Qaida and Iraq, they were not interested about the truth about the matter. |
I seem to recall a Red Cross report where Khalid Sheik Mohamed was interviewed and claimed to have been water boarded 5 times. This number, 183, seems ridiculous. Where does it come from?
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Here for example... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 05/22/2009 : 20:03:11 [Permalink]
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I took it as if Graham just tried to pick a long period of time, I would be pretty surprised if he actually thought it out. Yes, I suppose it is an endorsement of torture, but not necessarily of the Inquisition by any means.
I am a bit skeptical to the claim that torture never yields good information if for no other reason than the fact that people who do the torturing are extremely unlikely to speak publicly about it. The question is somewhat trivial to me: I would oppose it regardless of its success or failure. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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I can't believe the bastard actually said it!
