[Udo]

A good person can still be "wrong" (for any given definition of it). Feinstein is wrong about AirBnB, and Conway is wrong about torture. I was a big fan of Christopher Hitchens' yet I think on balance he was wrong about the Iraq war.

For me, the main objection to torture is not that it often yields unreliable intel, or that innocents end up getting tortured to death, or that it produces more terrorists - all of which are true. I recognize torture sometimes saves lives, and I'm not unsympathetic to the emotion that it carries a somewhat satisfying vengeance component against an enemy who, in their own words, values death more than we value life. Yet my objection is about what effect torture has on us as a society. It's a plague on our house.

[olavk]

So "good person" just means "one of us" and has nothing to do with ethics.

[Devthrowaway80]

You don't object to innocent people being tortured to death?

If there was no societal impact, would those objections be enough for you to oppose torture?

"My main objection to driving drunk is not the whole 'running over pedestrians' thing, which does happen, but more the effect that it has on my paint job - I come home with all sorts of scuff marks."

[Udo]

> You don't object to innocent people being tortured to death?

Yes, I do object to that. Every single point I made against torture, I obviously support.

But hinging the entire anti-torture argument on innocents isn't going to be enough, sadly. Because of ambiguities about who exactly is innocent, and because of the relative ethics of torturing one possibly innocent victim in order to save potentially huge numbers of other innocents, a more profound argument is needed - one that covers the entire spectrum where torture is used.

In my opinion, this argument has to be about what torture turns us into.

Your interpretation of my comment is both very uncharitable and factually wrong.

[Devthrowaway80]

Ah, I see. I misinterpreted your comment, apologies.

Would you mind elaborating on what societal impact you think participating in torture has on the US? I'm curious to hear the viewpoint of an American on this.

(From the perspective of a heathen foreigner, the US military has done despicable things for decades, so to some degree this is just business as usual.)

[Udo]

> I'm curious to hear the viewpoint of an American on this. [...] From the perspective of a heathen foreigner

Hey, that makes two of us ;)

But I'm also European, that means apart from the religious aspect, we're pretty much in the same boat as the US, and often times that boat is a heavily armed gunship. In the end, countries are not monolithic entities, or even single ideologies for that matter. People in power are susceptible to atrocious ideas, wherever they live.

> Would you mind elaborating on what societal impact you think participating in torture has on the US?

For what it's worth, I think the impact is that we (US and allies) become a society of torturers, as banal as that may sound. Once we internalize the fact that we are people who torture, our entire values compass becomes skewed.