Topic: Torture
An Open letter to CBS
Promoting torture is always wrong. Television shouldn't be used to legitimize it.
by Darren Wolfe
(libertarian)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The October 28, 2008 episode of Without A Trace, "Rise and Fall", contained a scene in which Agent Malone tortures the brother of a serial killer by choking him with a wire clothes hanger as the killer does to kill his victims. The brother then reveals where the killer took the victim.

This strikes me as a blatant attempt to condition people to accept torture as a legitimate part of law enforcement and military operations. Portraying that horrible practice as the way to save people rather than as the life destroying abomination that it is stands decency and morality on their heads. Is this what our values have sunk to? That our TV heroes should be the ones who engage in such despicable practices is unacceptable.

The arguments pro torture generally revolve around gathering intelligence. I'd like to suggest that this is largely false. Extracting information from people is just the excuse used to cover the real reasons for torturing. There are basically two.

The first is to break enemy leaders and potential leaders. Leave them in such a broken state of mind that they can't effectively organize opposition to the US government. This is bad enough, but it begs the question of who is being tortured? Going after potential leaders inevitably means that many innocents will be hauled in.

The second reason for torturing is intimidation. Trying to strike fear in those who would oppose the US government. Submit or this could happen to you.

Please don't help lay the ground work for these practices that the US government uses overseas to become widespread here at home. (If it's not too late already.) In the future please don't portray torturers as heroes.

©2008 Darren Wolfe, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Last modified: Thursday, October 30, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of Darren Wolfe only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Darren Wolfe is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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Reader Comments:

Posted By: Master C
Date: 2008-10-29 19:41:00

Dear Darren,

No one watches CBS (or any other channel) when the World Series is on!  Why don't you watch the Great American Pasttime instead of setting up a nest in front of some crime show?

Master C

 

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Posted By: Jake, the champion of the constitution
Date: 2008-10-29 20:49:53

Darren -

I don't watch TV or even live in the US right now (huh World Series? :) but found this informative and commend you for bringing this up.  Media and propaganda ala Goebbels should be condemned wherever its, found.

Don't mind Mister C, he's actually pretty harmless from a logical perspective.  Would be nice if he tried to put some meat into his replies.... actually to be fair, his replies are so far off base that I wonder if he is just playing the role of the ultimate satirist?  For all his claims of being, in his own words, "mainstream", who would really believe this guy?

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Posted By: Darren
Date: 2008-10-30 05:13:02

Jake,

Thanks for the nice comment. 

Now for some fun.

Master C,

There was no World Series on Tuesday 10/28/08 it was rained out, remember? Your knowledge of Base Ball is as bad as your knowledge of economics.

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Posted By: James Babb
Date: 2008-10-30 06:52:57

I wonder how much uncle sam payed for that product placement.

Torture has never been a reliable method of getting accurate information. That's why the feds love it.

The US government uses torture to get actionable "intelligence". It is well known that torture victims usually just say whatever the torturers want to hear. So, it's the perfect tool to generate excuses for more government violence.

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Posted By: Christine Smith
Date: 2008-10-30 07:24:24

Good article (& good comment from James Babb). 

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Posted By: Barbara Grimmer
Date: 2009-06-11 08:42:47

CBS must be so proud of David Letterman's jokes at the expense of the Palin family,

I can promise you I will never watch David Letterman again or tune in to anything that CBS is running.

I think you people have hit the bottom of grose comments about people (children) and your ratings are beginning to show it.

 Shame on You.

 

 

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Posted By: Barbara Grimmer
Date: 2009-06-11 13:10:54

CBS must be so proud of David Letterman's jokes at the expense of the Palin family,

I can promise you I will never watch David Letterman again or tune in to anything that CBS is running.

I think you people have hit the bottom of grose comments about people (children) and your ratings are beginning to show it.

 Shame on You.

 

 

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