Torture as revenge/punishment.

IanExMachina

Mainly making this as a lot of people as there is a lot of the attitude about as OBL has died.

I think the idea that using torture as revenge or punishment is abhorrent, I also feel it would lose you any moral high ground.

ClockworkUniverse

Honestly, I feel that revenge for its own sake in general is kinda not very high up morally, but getting it through torture is particularly ungood.

Khwarizmi

^ Seconding that.

IanExMachina

^^ I agree about the revenge part as well, but the IJBM attitude that is especially visible at the moment is taking revenge as a given.

Stormtroper

I'm taking that as a sign I shouldn't read OBL threads.

IanExMachina

Not the huge one on OTC at least. Although the guy who was super duper wanting sadistic torture seems to have had his posts blanked.

Thorn14

Do the things Kenshiro do to the badguys count as Torture? Thats about what I feel needs to be done to bad bad bad bad guys.

IanExMachina

Probably If I recall something like, hitting vital points for either kills or ironic punishment?

If so yes. 

Thorn14

Bah. Those were great.

Guess I'm a sadistic torturer then.

IanExMachina

Your words.

LouieW

INUH,

Honestly, I feel that revenge for its own sake in general is kinda not
very high up morally, but getting it through torture is particularly
ungood.

I agree with you there. Sometimes I think that revenge is way too glamorized as well. I am not sure if this is a recent thing or if it has always been depicted like this (or maybe I just have a mistaken view here), but I think movies, TV shows, or books that put vengeful acts in a positive light are fairly common. What most comes to mind for me are movies about a father/husband and his quest to act out revenge against people or a person who either killed, sexually abused, or kidnapped his daughter or wife.

I realize those gender roles are sometimes reversed, but my impression is that the one who is the victim is usually female while the vengeful character is usually male. I dislike that trend in addition to how the one enacting revenge tends to be considered the "good guy" or at least the protagonist. I guess I just really prefer blind justice.

IanExMachina

^ This.

ClockworkUniverse

I think movies, TV shows, or books that put vengeful acts in a positive light are fairly common

Indeed. One work I've been following that does a great job of playing with the standard revenge plot is Vinland Saga. Let's just say revenge as a motive is not portrayed positively at all.

Vorpy

I support volatile torture, because moral high ground and sane justice should be kept separate when it comes to punishment for crimes (although keep in mind the Hitler + Nazis clause, where Osama bin Laden alone did not blow up the towers by himself and had cooperators to aid him in the cause).

lolwut version: when it comes to "cruel" and "unusual", it's merely subjective. It's the torture part that counts.

Gelzo

The drive for vengeance can be useful in bringing about justice, but the point of justice is to discourage or otherwise prevent people from causing harm. It's not good to lose sight of that.

Torture doesn't strike me as something that would be any more of a deterrent than an execution, and it's a hell of a lot less humane in my opinion.

Bastion

The only legitimate use for torture is foreplay.

DarkDecapodian

I'll agree that torture loses you the moral high ground, but then again the torturers don't really care for the moral high ground. When someone is willing to inflict slow, brutal agony on another, all they care about is feeding the beast, so to speak.