Water torture

[HonaloochieB]

*Bob* is surely a Dapper Dan man.

[bigbadwolf]

Really Hona, there's some people who think those boxsets should be part of their mandatory basic training.

[*Bob*]

Fortunately the security isn't too bad at Womad.

It's the sniffer dogs at Hay you really have to be careful of.

[Santerme]

Not wishing to pour cold water on the claims but I think we'll find it all comes out in the wash.

They're probably feeling flushed with success

[jimmy two times]

I'm sorry Legal but how can you possibly compare being nicked for drink driving or inciting racial hatred, as nasty as these offences are, with paedophilia or drug dealing?

[mockney piers]

I'd say about 95% of my friends have been 'drug dealers' at some point in their lives. They're all school teachers, charity workers, lawyers, civil servants, parents and fine upstanding people who have contributed hugely to society and not really done it any harm.

You'd have had them locked up for life, killed, limbs lopped off or just driven out of town along with the paedos?

[bigbadwolf]

Weed (shitty weed at that) doesn't count Mockney, we've all flogged it at some point.

[jimmy two times]

So just to clarify, I'm now in a debate with someone who is defending drug dealing? Let's be clear. The drug dealing you describe is of the petty variety, usually involving to selling to mates. Not exactly 'The Wire'. Similarly I draw no comparison between someone who gets nicked for having a punch up in a pub and someone who ties someone to a chair and stabs them 250 times. Both acts of violence, but quite a discrepancy I'm sure you would agree.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

Also, drug dealers may be a blight on society but without them a large number of forumites wouldn't function.... that doesn't make it right of course. Just saying....

Talk about the Dawn Of Realisation! (well 7.30AM anyway) ...

The extraordinarily erratic behaviour of certain Forumites, one moment sociable, friendly, welcoming and then at other times metamorphorising, metamorphorsizing, metamorfthesing, well, transforming, anyway, into snarling, ranting cosmerges, with no warning and for no apparent reason has suddenly become much clearer and understandable.

Just saying....

p.s. Does anyone know how to spell metamorphising ?

[mockney piers]

There is an entire profession and branch of government aimed at clarifying the rather indistinct grey areas you describe JTT, forgive me if I'd rather leave my trust in their abilities than your good self, eminently qualified though you appear.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Tony: just to be clear - if that witty remark referred to me, it don't apply - I genuinely don't do drugs.

Jimmy: I'm certainly not defending drug dealers. But I would say that prohibition doesn't work and the "war on drugs" as carried out in all countries is failing. I'm not going to simplay say "legalise drugs" but I do think youcan solve a lot of the problems asociated with drug-dealing in a better way

I haven't got any stats re: Scandanavian countries to hand (where is Huguenot when you need him??) but I think most people are aware that they have a fairly enlightened and open society

For an amusing take on how Americans see them...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225113&title=the-stockholm-syndrome

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225126&title=the-stockholm-syndrome-pt.-2&byDate=true

In any case I came up with 2 examples because you haven't been able to name one society in all of history which gained from torture

If the police had those powers they would become under pressure to use them more often. I could grass you up (i could get some mates to corroborate) and the interesting thing about torture is it hurts - you will confess to being that drug dealer..

Even if torture worked, any civilised society should be above it, but

as it doesn't even work

more shame on us

Jimmy, sounds like we have the same targets and want to solve the same problems, but I just can't accept in any way your pov viz: torture

[legalbeagle]

jimmy two times Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm sorry Legal but how can you possibly compare

> being nicked for drink driving or inciting racial

> hatred, as nasty as these offences are, with

> paedophilia or drug dealing?

I'm not comparing them JTT, I agree with you that the offences aren't as severe. My point is that someone has to make the distinction between which offences are worse than others. As I said, my examples were exaggerations to make the point - how do you decide which offence is worse than the next?

But this argument is a diversion from the bigger picture which is that your original post seems to be advocating torture to extract confessions in cases of serious crime. Any, even of there was a fair way of deciding which crimes are the most serious, my point is that there is never an excusable time to use torture.

[HellNoHellYeah]

Why is that when somebody is arrested 'on suspicion of....' so many people leap to the conclusion that the person is guilty???? I've seen the way the police operate and being arrested and charged actually means very little. Even being convicted in a magistrate's court isn't in truth that convincing. Get convicted of an offence in a Crown Court and, yes, there is then a very high chance that you really are guilty...

[????]

where's the lynch mob? There's a dodgy bloke outside Budgens thst needs sorting, i don't like the look of him at all

[Brendan]

You get the Scrabble board Quids and I?ll bring a bottle of Perrier.

[jimmy two times]

Sean you're right, I can't provide you with any examples of societies that have benefited from torture or capital punishment. I'm not armed with such stats on a daily basis. I'm sure if I was I could probably put some sort of spin on them to suggest that torture of criminals and enemies of the state and capital punishment do indeed create a better society. I'd imagine for one thing Britain in the 50s had less of a drug and crime problem then it does now, and capital punishment was still in force then.

[SeanMacGabhann]

That doesn't mean you can equate the two tho Jimmy

The world has evolved in many ways since then, with many US states retaining the death penalty and still having massive drug/crime/murder problems. I would suggest the lower crime rate in the 50s has as much to do with a much smaller gap between the haves and have nots for example

Nor would I say the 50s was a utopia either - back street abortions ahoy! The country was genuinely broke and people like me weren't welcome in B&Bs across the land

Nor did Britain condone torture in the 50s

[Jeremy]

Nor did they execute drug dealers in the 50s.

[jimmy two times]

We currently don't have capital punishment in the this country. Would you say this works?

[Jeremy]

Flawed logic.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

Tony: just to be clear - if that witty remark referred to me, it don't apply - I genuinely don't do drugs.

Please don't accuse me of being witty, even sarcastically.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Jimmy - if you mean "does not having capital punishment mean we have more crime"? then I would say no it doesn't

Bringing capital punishment back wouldn't deter the crimes you are concerned about. It would mean that innocent people die. And it would mean that as a society we have gone backwards and not forwards

[jimmy two times]

I'm not sure if innocent people would die with DNA evidence readily available. There are some cast iron convictions that there are no doubts about. Take Sonnex. Why should his life be preserved at a cost to the tax payer? He sadistically took a life. There is no evidence of mental illness or diminished responsibility. He's just plain old evil. And there are absolutely no doubts whatsoever that he committed the crime.

[*Bob*]

I suggest torture on a sliding scale to fit the seriousness of the crime.

So, for the most serious crimes (heresy, treachery): the rack, living bamboo grown up the anal passage, sanding-down of the limbs with power tools etc etc

Mid-level crimes (tax evasion, being cruel to donkeys): kneecapping, made to squat in a small box in darkness for ten hours, thumbscrews, use of non-powertools

Low-level crimes (traffic offences, non-payment of council tax): Light beatings (sock with snooker ball in it), being urinated on, forced to watch Panorama.

Society will be all the better for it.

[SeanMacGabhann]

So why be complicit in the same motivations as him? You wanting someone dead isn't THAT much different to the thought process he employs.

I don't believe in "plain old evil" - I believe people are broken and we could, if we wanted, do more to find out what breaks people. What motivates them. But we don't want to spend money on that either