ACL who?
by Tom Temple
2 March 2005
You all know how upset I get when agents of the great and noble USA torture people. The protectors of all that is good and noble in America, the ACLU, is taking on Don Rumsfeld over this . I don’t particularly have a problem with Rummy (he seems sensible in private), but my original thought was that Rumsfeld needed to go whether culpable or not. “It’s about sending the right message to our troops and the rest of the world,” I would have said. It turns out that the administration had actually sent some incorrect and misleading * messages. I would go so far as to say that these messages primarily caused the problem. Even if we were to ignore the evidence, culpability certainly extends higher.
Have you guys heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment ?
Abuse like this is happening ... everywhere. As Zimbardo says, it’s not the apples, it’s the barrel.
*If you’re in a rush, just read the appendices.
Mar 2, 06:39 PM
11 links in a paragraph plus a sentance … it’s like you think I have nothing to do in the average day besides figure out when my ski and nap are going to be.
Mar 2, 08:55 PM
Sorry, Brayt. I try to keep the links interesting. The problem is that I only trust people who link their sources. But maybe I should give more in the way of page numbers when I link hundred-page documents.
Mar 3, 08:05 AM
Speaking of links… any way to link to an episode of “24”? Ignoring my love for Kiefer Sutherland, his “bad cop” tactics seem to encourage the viewing audience to see torture (a recurring theme) primarily as a necessary evil.
Mar 3, 07:45 PM
Dude, the whole show is about torture! Everyone gets tortured. Good guys, bad guys. Torture as a first option, not a last resort. (I guess when nuclear reactors are about to melt down you get to skip a couple steps, but still …)