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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (6697)	5/23/2007 7:43:32 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

Well, I suppose a definition of torture is needed. The word is so overloaded: my date was pure torture; don't take that class, it's torture; my tooth is torturing me. Let's define it more narrowly as "non-punitive action causing severe mental or physical discomfort aimed at extracting useful information". As I recall, the government tried to define that level of discomfort to include things like permanent damage, mental anguish, fear of immediate death, etc. I assert that, since gauging another person's pain is subjective and difficult, it would be near impossible to define a line between 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' pain. With one person, pulling a single fingernail will make them spill their life history, hereas another may take all but name, rank, and serial number to their grave. That's another reason I think we should just chuck the whole concept - torture, or 'aggressive interrogation', etc - and apply our current protections to all prisoners. Cause it would be too hard to define what is and is not acceptable....