Torture has been the talk of the town lately, and unfortunately, I got myself sucked into a debate between two ideological forces — torture is bad, torture is good. Although I agree with the former, I felt that the individuals arguing the point either lacked the cognitive horsepower or were too consumed with emotion to give the argument justice. This inevitably led the debate into ad hominems attacks and strawman fallacies. So, I wrote my response.

As I wrote out my argument, I realized that more time was spent on it than I originally planned. So I thought to myself, I should just post this to Blog4Brains.com as well. So without further ado, here was my argument:

It is funny when you can look at all of this from an unbiased perspective. Both sides are so inflamed with emotion that neither are making solid, logical points. You have one side that demonizes the enemy so that he can justify his country’s unethical actions, and you have the other that is just as emotional trying to make a point with metaphysical or pure subjective ideology. Here are some points I have not read here (I have not read the whole thread since it makes my stomach hurt):

Point one: Perspective is everything. America is losing credibility on the global stage with the use of wide spread bag ‘em and gag ‘em torture. For us to have influence as a leading nation within the global scene, we have to act like a leading nation. Unfortunately, we are not. We have “stooped” to the level of our enemies.

Point two: This sub-human treatment of our enemies (torture) is a perfect motivator for the recruitment of more al Qaeda. We might as well write their marketing brochures for them.

Point three: Have any of us stopped to think that maybe we have been suckered into the war, the unethical treatment of others and the financial burden of the war on terror exactly how the wanted? There was a speech by Osama bin Laden before the attack on America, and in this speech, he claimed that he wanted to drag America into a war, war that would drain and burden us to exhaustion. Osama knew that he could not defeat America, but he knew he could encourage us to defeat ourselves. I think he accomplished his goals.

Point four: Where do you draw the line with whom you considered “sub-human?” Do you just say all Muslims? Let’s say you want to say all extreme Muslims, but how do you define extreme? We are not fighting an enemy that wears a uniform, or represents a unified force, so how does one define the enemy? Many people were snatched up and locked away for things that you believe they may have done, but is that ethical? Yes, we were locking away and tortureing people that, literally, committed no crime. Should a police officer be able to write you a ticket for a future traffic law offense?

Point five: What many fanatically pro-Americans don’t realize is that their unconditional, blind support of their country is nearly identical to the unconditional, blind support of the terrorists with their agenda. The only difference is Americans have national representation and a multibillion dollar military that does all the work for them. The terrorists have no national support, they have no army, so they create it themselves (this is not a justification of what they do, just a rationale for their actions — good or bad). They blindly support their ideology just as you all support yours.

9/11’s tragic event does not change the game, it does not redefine ethics, morals or human sciences. It just creates a bigger stage. We, as members of society, have to keep our emotions at bay. Emotions are the antithesis of logic and reason, and with the world as our stage, it becomes imperative that we keep the big picture in focus. This tit for tat mentality or these revenge based actions just bury ourselves in the emotional past, leaving ourselves with an unforeseen future.

I want you all to notice how I have neither attacked a single person (ad hominem), nor have a selectively chosen pieces of another’s argument and used it to redirect the debate (straw man fallacy). What I have done is present my argument with logic, reason and respect. We need to get ahold of ourselves. America is a train the can and may derail. We need to pull back and reassess who we are and what being American means.

America was founded as a secular nation, with reason and logic at its core. Unfortunately, we are allowing 9/11 to define who we are, while the Constitution and all its majesty is being corrupted and ignored. We need to make a decision. Are we going to allow a band of terrorists to define America as they have successfully done for the last 7 years, or are we going to define ourselves as a nation better than that of our enemies? If it is the latter, we need to stop justifying our actions because of 9/11 and start acting according to our Constitution and the code of conduct that we helped built many years ago (eg. Geneva Conventions).

[Cerebrl]