Reply #6: The "ticking time bomb" is a red herring [View All]

[me b zola]

Good post. Here's how I responded to another thread where someone brought up the question of a ticking bomb:

Such a set of events are highly unlikely. Since torture is counter productive under normal circumstances, why would it work even if there was a rip in time & space and the "ticking time bomb" scenerio was to occur?

Here's a few things to consider:

>That everything that it means to be an American is contained within the Constitution & the Bill of Rights. No matter what awful thing an outside enemy of the State were able to accomplish here, they could never destroy America. Are you following my line of thought? America can only be destroyed from within, by our own hands. As long as we uphold the rule of law and our sacred documents, we will survive.

>40,000 people die every year in auto accidents. Should we outlaw automobiles in the name of public safety? 40,000--wow, think about that.

>Imagine a nuke gets set off here in the US. Do you know what I think it would look like? I think that it would look like the Gulf Coast after Katrina hit. Of course there would be many survivors with radiation burns and poisening, but in terms of displaced people I believe it would be about the same. The point here is that we survived, of course if bush* hadn't completely ruined FEMA there would be many families that would be doing better than just surviving--and don't even get me started on those who didn't survive only because of bush*s criminal negligence.




So let me summerize my rambling post: The "ticking time bomb" excuse for torturing people, it is a red herring. Torture doesn't work. No amount of terrorism has the ability to destroy us, only we have that power. The odds of dying due terrorism don't even compare to the odds of dying doing the things that we do everyday. Even if the worst case scenerio occurs, we have survived a similar circumstance---but we despirately need Dems to be back in office so that we can deal with emergencies.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2154055&mesg_id=2154352





Thanks for your post, people really need to get a grip and think about what it is that they fear...or want us to fear ;)