How To Stop Torture
By James T. Moore (05/15/07)
This idea may sound un-Christianlike, unacceptable, or off the wall, but if we are really serious about getting this Beast off our back, this is one way to do it---I'll save that for the end.
To my mind, taking a human life is wrong; though there may be (at times) justifiable exceptions, such as mental deterioration, sudden loss of rational thought, or killing for legal or accidental reasons
But, torturing a helpless human being goes beyond wrong, even beyond killing. Torture is insane, inexcusable; an animalistic, heartless, cowardly act, void of decency or remorse; beyond the range of empathy or feelings; and totally absent of conscience or compassion. That being said, torture must be a popular way to extract information--- or for a torturer to get his kicks on a boring day--- since there’s so much of it going on in the world. At last count, up to 100 countries worldwide systematically practice torture, according to International Amnesty reports. I find that appalling.
I submit that until someone personally feels the agony and excruciating pain of being tortured, he has little incentive to stop it. Why should he? It’s the other guy who’s screaming.
According to clinicians who deal with its victims, torture begins as a limited internal fact but eventually preoccupies the entire body, spilling out into the realm “beyond the body.”
There are an infinite number of gut-wrenching ways in which body, mind, and spirit can be tortured: total isolation for long periods, mutilation of body parts, sleep deprivation, beatings, electrical shocks, burning, freezing, cutting, brainwashing, rape, starvation, humiliation, threats, tied up in painful positions, being forced to watch the torture of others, especially close family members, and so on.
What’s worse, torturers themselves seem unconcerned at having to participate in this atrocity. It’s just a job.
In a Brazilian newspaper, clinician Jose Morais denounced torture and gave the names of people he knew who were involved in it, and he was stunned: “No one on the list denies it. Society at large is unresponsive. And what’s worse, our friends and allies are indifferent.”
The old Biblical axiom of “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” was challenged by Jesus’ later admonition to turn the other cheek, be kind to those who hurt you, and so on. And although Jesus, of course, was right, we’re here, having to deal with the everyday animalistic tendencies of man. So if we want to rid the world of torture, the “eye for an eye” admonition may not be such a bad idea after all.
Marshal Dayan, Ass’t Professor of Law at NC Central University, opines that the main purposes of punishment for crime are deterrence, prevention, rehabilitation and retribution. Of these, deterrence is the most important because it can have the greatest effect on society at large.
In 1973, a new kind of analysis proved Prof. Dayan right; for every inmate who was executed, seven lives were saved because others were deterred from committing murder. I contend that in some ways, torture is worse than murder, and that where punishment for torture is concerned “the greatest effect on society at large” can be achieved by punishing the torturer with the same unbearable agony he meted out.
It seems to me that if these hardened individuals had the retributive threat of sustained physical pain hanging over their heads they might think twice before participating in torture sessions. Is this such a animalistic idea? After all, in our “humane” society, professional hangmen, administers of lethal injections, even judges ordering prison with hard labor, take their professions seriously and do their duty with a certain detachment.
How and when the penalty of “retributive torture’ would be administered, and who would be in charge of its administration would be a procedure yet to be determined. But if it saved one person from the horrible agony of unstoppable pain administered by another person, the effort would be worth it.
In the olden days, before this country became “civilized” and “enlightened”, they used to lock criminals in unnatural positions in wooden stocks in the public square, or tie them to a whipping post for an excruciatingly painful lashing.
Now, I wasn’t around in those days, but I wager that a man with bestial tendencies thought long and hard about the “stocks” and the “post” before he physically hurt anyone ever again.
James T. Moore
(Printer friendly version) Email: James T. Moore
