Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
In Germany, there was a crime case some years ago, the kidnapping of a boy whose parents were millionaires. The criminal was caught, to me an clear case of very severe psychopathic personality structure, with zero space for any empathy for others, or emotional life. The responsible police inspector threatened to beat him if he would not tell them where he had hidden his victim. In fact, it did not go beyond the threatening. The subject was successfully intimidated and led them were the boy was held, but it was too late, he was dead. Later the man sued the police inspector over charges of threatening excessive force and even violation of human rights (his own violation of his victim's rights he never lost a word for), if I remember correctly, this bastard went as far as the European Courts. Disciplinary measure also were exceuted by th auhtorities by themselves. The inspector, as far as I remember, was sentenced (a scandal, imo) for a suspended milder penalty. Justice fled from making a clear moral statement here: on behalf of the victims, and against the criminal perpetrators.
These days everything, even good and evil, need to be balanced 50:50 and need to be seen in relation, it seems. Pfui.
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In the war on terrorism you often heard the argument framed as: "if you knew a nuclear device were going to go off in six hours, would you torture a suspect to find out where it is?"
Such statements are entirely bogus, of course. All of them presuppose that torture works. There's never any argument to the effect that the torture subject will happily feed you a diet of red herrings for a few hours that will actually divert resources away from finding the bomb, deceasing the probability that you will find it in time. It seems to me an interrogation subject in such a situation would be inclined to be a tougher nut to crack than average, because he only has to endure for a few hours to achieve what he would regard as a monumental success and maybe a ticket to paradise. His ultimate payoff. Unlike the kidnapper who motives were only monetary and since he's been caught he's never going to see his payoff at this point.