There's a big difference. Execution is final. Torture is not. I certainly wouldn't want to see them tortured to death.
My point is, that if someone's going to advocate something as unusual as torture, then they should be willing to have themselves subjected to it as well. It's one thing to sit in some ivory tower and write about the virtues of torture, and a whole other thing to be subjected to it yourself and then write in favor of it. I'm against torture, I'm saying if one is in favor or it, then I don't see why they'd have a problem being a test subject? Unless they are a complete hyprocrite, which I suspect most of the torture advocates are.
This is exactly one of the reasons I oppose capital punishment. I say if one is in favor of capital punishment, then they have to conceed that the state has the right to take their life (an interesting thing for a Libertarian to contemplate). I don't believe the state should have that right, and certainly even if they do, I don't think the state should spend their resources killing people. I mean, we spend billions of dollars on police/firemen/doctors, etc. to save peoples lives. It's a central organizing principal of our society, to save lives. I don't see why we should also be in the business of taking lives, no matter what the circumstance is. Let em rot in jail for their crimes, some are innocent anyway, in which case it would be tatamount to state murder. I was on the fence on capital punishment for years, but after seeing so many innocent people released from death row and after considering the extrodinary efforts we spend to save people's lives, it just doesn't make any sense in a civilized society. |
