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Originally Posted by Aramike
Wrong.
The argument only becomes "basic" when you simplify it out of context. Sorry, but you have no authority to simplify the expression and context of an argument in order to invalidate it. Doing so changes the argument. As such, it becomes YOUR construct, and YOU end up only arguing against yourself.
Dude, give it a rest.
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Actually, you repeatedly made the silly argument that becuase the CIA was doing it, it must work. Letum just showed how your reasoning was fallacious. Only later did you expand on it to try and get out of that sinkhole....by an appeal to authority.
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Secondly, the argument that torture doesn't work fails heavily when one considers that, if it wasn't working, it wouldn't be used.
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History is full of instances when groups of experts have screwed up royally. You have to provide something more than your appeal to the authority of the CIA, how they are in a
special position and are therefore suitably immune to confirmation bias, and are not simply the latest in a long line of experts who have been dead wrong. The burden of proof is on you because torture had previously been thought to be ineffective. You have to show why now it magically works and is perfectly justified, now that the US is doing it.
Regarding the charge of hypocrisy against those who decry torture in America but who are supposedly silent when it happens in places like China: baloney. If there was a thread about torture in China, I would register my disgust there. It's only hypocrisy if you oppose it in one instance, while
actively supporting it in another instance without suitable justification.
It's just, gosh, I hold the US to a higher standard than the People's Republic, silly me.