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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTorture widely popular among Americans
snip
While these figures are from 2009, a more recent YouGov poll from 2012 showed similar levels of support for torture among the public overall. A 2014 report by the advocacy group Amnesty International found that U.S. respondents were more supportive of torture than people in other wealthy Western countries.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/09/lets-not-kid-ourselves-most-americans-are-fine-with-torture-even-when-you-call-it-torture/
What's wrong with America? How can half the population think that torture is okay? Then again, why are we the only advanced country in the world that still has capital punishment?
I don't know the answers to these questions. But the only "American Exceptionalism" that seems to exist is a widespread lack of empathy.
I wonder how many people would approve of torture if the victims were white christians, rather than brown muslims.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)that says 'No torture, no exceptions.'
So all of these Congressmen (and regular people) saying 'It's ok, because we were scared, and it's ok, because we got intelligence', are 100% legally wrong.
(100% morally wrong as well, but that's another story.)
Bandit
(21,475 posts)They LIE daily and are the most untrustworthy of any humans on earth so not following Laws or Treaties mean little to them. In fact the only things that really have meaning to them is Money and Power. PERIOD
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,835 posts)It's really been ingrained in our culture via entertainment media that it does.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Your right. On 24, Homeland, Zero Dark Thirty, torture worked and Americans watched these programs and movie by the multi millions. We have been trained to accept torture by many fronts.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Neat and clean Always needed and constitutional
Idiots let their young children watch that crap too. So when they get the orders serving in the military to torture a few years later, they can think
what a hero they are just like on TV
I was at a relative's house and they put that on and their kids curled up to watch it. I asked if our kids could go outside for a walk with us while they were watching the show.
When we returned from the park nearby they said they understand some don't want their kids to see any violence.
I called it propaganda and it was the end of our conversation about torture shows.....
Wouldn't let them get away with a random 'shielded from violence' excuse -which we do not and wasn't the point
sendero
(28,552 posts)... and stupider with each passing year. They don't bother to think of how useless torture actually is, they don't bother to think of how it gives our enemies carte blanc to do the same thing. They never knew or forgot why the Geneva Conventions were created and what they accomplished.
America is going the way of all comfortable mature countries, we are getting lazy and stupid and we think we run the world forever and that anyone who messes with us deserves whatever they get, rules don't apply to us. Kind of like our police force, in a macro way. It cannot end well.
spanone
(135,831 posts)who would Jesus torture?
Mariana
(14,856 posts)KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)The Milgram Experiment
The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
and
The Stanford Prison Experiment
After a relatively uneventful first day, on the second day the prisoners in Cell 1 blockaded their cell door with their beds and took off their stocking caps, refusing to come out or follow the guards' instructions. Guards from other shifts volunteered to work extra hours to assist in subduing the revolt, and subsequently attacked the prisoners with fire extinguishers without being supervised by the research staff. Finding that handling nine cell mates with only three guards per shift was challenging, one of the guards suggested that they use psychological tactics to control them. They set up a "privilege cell" in which prisoners who were not involved in the riot were treated with special rewards, such as higher quality meals. The "privileged" inmates chose not to eat the meal in order to stay uniform with their fellow prisoners. After only 36 hours, one prisoner began to act "crazy", as Zimbardo described: "#8612 then began to act crazy, to scream, to curse, to go into a rage that seemed out of control. It took quite a while before we became convinced that he was really suffering and that we had to release him."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Cyrano
(15,035 posts)show any significant differences between Republicans and Democrats. It would be interesting to redo the Milgram experiment with a mixture of FOX "News" addicts and liberals.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)broad swath of opinions here from full-on anarcho-libertarian to fullbore authoritarian!
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Torture? No, I don't think so.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)"most Americans are fine with torture". Obviously, half the population isn't fine with torture. That being said it's still way too high. I think this is an effort by WashPo to cover up for Bush, Cheney and the CIA . "See ? Everybody thinks torture's okay! Move along."
RedCappedBandit
(5,514 posts)What the fuck is the point of our bill of rights? Are Americans special somehow? Only we deserve human rights? Brown people from across the lake don't fucking matter? We have no damn integrity as a people. It's embarrassing, shameful and pathetic.
chrisa
(4,524 posts)They think torture works like on 24, where it takes mere minutes for people to crack. The reality is, torture is too unreliable, and more importantly, is against international law. By torturing, we can no longer object to American citizens being tortured elsewhere without hypocrites.
TBH, torture is totally unnecessary and immoral except for maybe a few very specific situations. There's no reason to sleep deprive, rape, and waterboard detainees for any reason other than being a soulless monster. Our policies are so cold-hearted and disgusting that, by fighting the enemy, we have become them.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)When I have mentioned to my Republican friends that the victims at Abu Ghraib are women and children of "detainees," that young children were among those raped and tortured and brutalized in all sadistic manners in Iraq -- a nation that had nothing to do with September 11 -- and that John Yoo said if the president OKs crushing a child's testicles, it's OK with the Department of Justice; when I say all that, they are against torture. And they never look at Bush and Cheney and the rest of that crowd the same way.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)were 'raped and tortured and brutalized'? I know Seymour Hersh alleged it in his reporting, but I never saw that particular grotesquerie get confirmed elsewhere. If it has, I would deeply appreciate if you could share it, as I would like to use it on FB with the fascists and neo-Nazis one so often meets there.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Once I get a source, and a photo, please know I'll follow up.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)willingness to 'converse' with and try to chnage the minds of your Republican 'friends.' I wrote 'em all off back in the run-up to the Iraq War, ca. 2002-03, and haven't looked back. But that is more one of my character's shortcomings than any reflection upon your efforts.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)it's own people from top to bottom. So, it isn't shocking a lot of Americans lack concern.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)and most of them probably call themselves "Christians"...