One thing I've noticed about people who try to defend morally indefensible positions:

[Tommy_Carcetti]

They like to make analogies. But not just any analogies, really weird, impractical, twisted analogies that would never actually happen in real life. Typically involving death or peril to one's family member.

So I'm arguing with some guy on Facebook--friend of a friend--regarding the torture report, and he literally thinks rectal feeding isn't torture. I make my position known, and he comes back with me asking what would happen if two people broke into my house, kidnapped my child, I managed to capture one of them, but the other one ran away with my kid, what would I do to try to find out where the other guy had gone with my kid?

I snarkly responded by reposting the "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you" quote from that ridiculously stupid Liam Neeson movie. I don't know if he got the joke or not.

Another example from Facebook:

(Just as a matter of note, I include support of the death penalty as a morally indefensible position. I'm sorry, but I see the intentional killing of someone who is already incarcerated and removed from society--presumably for life--as something that far exceeds the power of the state)

So I'm discussing capital punishment on Facebook. And I make it known that I believe it serves no legitimate purpose, doesn't deter crime and does nothing to protect society that incarceration can't do. And someone came back to me and asks what would happen if someone killed someone in my family, was sent to prison, but then escaped and wanted to come back to my house and kill more people in my family, would I support the death penalty then? Because apparently in the extremely rare instance of a prison break of someone convicted of a brutal murder, the first place the escaped convict heads is not towards the border or some secluded hideaway, but back to the original victim to kill more people in my family.

Honestly, what goes on in some people's heads?

[riqster]

1. Well, what if grapes?

There, logic your way out of that perfect analogy!

[NV Whino]

2. Too much Tee Vee.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

3. They think Jack Bauer is a real guy. nt

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. You're actually pinning something here

Conservative arguments tend to be deductive: they begin from abstract principles. They are religious-philosophical in that sense. Liberal arguments tend to be inductive, arguing from cases. They are "scientific" in that sense. Obviously, this is very schematic and doesn't apply to all conservative or liberal arguments or people. It indicates a tendency that is readily apparent if you read enough of these arguments. It also explains why conservatives tend to fetishize the *objects* that serve as the basis for their deductive argumentation/beliefs (the Bible, tablets with the ten commandments written on them, the very *words* of the Founders, etc.), and why those same objects often evoke a shrug from liberals.

In your case, the abstract analogy is really an attempt to draw you into their argumentative comfort zone: they begin from a "principle" and want the policy to be derived from it; the only way to get there is through an abstract analogy. the "ticking time bomb" argument is a deductive argument; liberals always counter it with an inductive argument (no such case exists!). In this sense, your resistance to this tactic is typically liberal: you counter that no such cases exist, that we can't make general claims (in an inductive manner) based on non-existent cases.

So, essentially, y'all are talking past each other because you don't 1) follow the same mode of argumentation or 2) have procedures for argumentation.

Also, don't argue politics on Facebook. It's silly.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. I never post my own political posts on Facebook.

I stick to baseball, football and cute shit my kids are doing.

But I do jump in on other people's political posts from time to time.

[RedCappedBandit]

14. Discussing social issues on FB is no more or less silly than here. nt

[CJCRANE]

5. Ask him: What if the person you tortured

was innocent...and he or she or his or her relatives flipped out and decided to seek revenge?

That's a more likely scenario.

Kind of why torture used to be done by the *bad* guys in movies (and WWII).

[Tommy_Carcetti]

21. Someone yesterday actually told me that innocent people are sometimes convicted in court.

But we wouldn't get rid of the courts, so we shouldn't stop torturing either.

Yes, someone actually said that.

[Fred Sanders]

7. Many examples from the mass weapons and guns lovers, such as "more folks are killed by knives" and

such, the deflection is an illness.

[Johonny]

8. My favorite is the "What if your parents aborted you."

as if that is supposed to make me say, "Then I wouldn't be here. Oh, my god your right!" I don't understand why pointless hypothetical retorts of thing that will never happen are considered by some devastating comebacks by people.

[hifiguy]

15. Somewhere there is an analogy even dumber than the "what if your parents aborted you?"

analogy. But I have yet to find one.

What if grandma had whiskers, she'd be grandpa!!

[niyad]

9. you are being generous in assuming that things do go on in some people's heads.

[hifiguy]

16. I have read plausible estimates that 35-40% of the American population

is functionally illiterate. I would bet the house that a substantially higher percentage has, in essence, zero critical thinking skills.

I am not sure a country can survive with a moron population as high as America's is.

[niyad]

18. not only the level of moronity, but the sheer, unbridled hatred for intelligence, for science,

for facts, for knowledge, for education, exhibited by so many.

[hifiguy]

20. You are so right.

This is likely the only country in the developed world where ignorance and stupidity are considered to be virtues by such a huge percentage of the population.

[Alittleliberal]

30. Educating yourself is a burden most of the populace couldn't give a shit about n/t

[Orrex]

10. Your FB friend's fundamental analogy is flawed

Any comparison between the justifiable actions of an individual and the justifiable actions of a nation is inherently faulty and can be ignored.

Further, if you were to stuff a few pop tarts up the ass of the home invaders, then you would likely face criminal charges. Even if those charges were ultimately dropped, you would still be subject to the law.

The difference here is that the US is claiming unquestionable authority to declare its actions justifiable by fiat, so due process cannot take place. Literally any action could be justified by that standard, with no hope of legal review. If the US can't do the time, then the US shouldn't do the crime.

Same goes for murder. I'm confident that I would be capable of killing someone in defense of my family, but I wouldn't cross my arms and declare myself immune from legal review thereafter. I hope that I would be cleared of wrongdoing, but I accept that I would have to submit to due process.

Also, ask you FBFriend to cite an example of a case in which torture was successfully used to defuse an immediate threat in the manner that he described (home invasion/kidnapping). If he can't provide one, then he's simply articulating a vile fantasy.

[rock]

11. Re Liam Neeson movie

To me Torture and Death Penalty fall into the same category. My government should be allowed neither (the government is neither trustworthy nor reliable for such extreme actions). As for personal actions, they should be illegal, but in Liam Neeson's movie example, I ain't gonna hold the character to the same standards as I hold my government.

[treestar]

12. It's an appeal to emotions

One answer I've tried is that I wouldn't be objective in such a case, so that's why we have the law rather than vigilantism and individual justice, as perceived by that individual. How do we know they have the right person? Of course in their hypothetical it is clear but then it might not always be.

[Skittles]

13. it's like gun humping ignorance

CAUSED BY PLAIN OLD FEAR

[Oilwellian]

17. Honestly, what goes on in some people's heads?

Absolutely nothing.

[salin]

28. Exactly. Probably parrotting something he heard Hannity say.

that is a lot easier for some folks, than, you know - thinking.

[Posteritatis]

19. Gotta love how elaborate the scenarios they toss out can get

"Well gee, if that happened to me I'd already be living in a movie - probably as the protagonist if the bad guys abducted or wanted to murder my family - and so I'd probably come out of not only okay but like a badass, because the writers would be on my side."

[whatthehey]

22. No analogies here - recidivism

There have been many people killed, not in the movies but in real life by those already convicted of murder. Some escape, some are released, some kill again in prison. Nobody, not once, ever, has been executed and killed again. Anti-DP folks love to wax lyrical about the potential sort-of-innocent lives lost to execution, but are strangely blase with the far more definitive loss of innocent life by repeat killers.

Review Kenneth McDuff for the best example. He is however far from alone.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

25. I'm not aware of a situation where someone has escaped prision....

...and then immediately gone to target surviving members of a victim's family.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not personally aware of any such circumstance. And that was the analogy that was being offered to me.

So yeah, it's a ridiculous analogy.

[JonLP24]

27. "Sort-of-innocent" lives?

You realize a lot of so-called forensics "experts" are allowed to testify and continue to be allowed to testify even after when something like DNA proves their bullshit to be false. Why do you think the "Snaggletooth Killer" opposes the death penalty?

Even with that there is an inconsistency especially when it comes to race, especially the race of the victim. Or in Texas the guy that killed the clear was spared while the getaway driver was executed. The death penalty actually benefits the repeat killers, often pleas are struck when they don't have enough evidence to convict on other cases or what to solve unknown murders they'll strike a deal. ``

[Maedhros]

32. "Potential, sort-of-innocent lives lost to execution?"

What kind of bullshit is that?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/28/innocent-death-penalty-study_n_5228854.html

While in a conversation with his lawyer Taylor Koss, left, Jonathan Fleming, center, observes his lawyer's son Max, 6, as he uses a tablet computer on Friday April 18, 2014 in New York. Fleming was exonerated of murder after almost 25 years behind bars. The weeks since his release have been a mix of emotional highs and practical frustrations. ?Coming back, you know, it?s been hard. ... It?s a lot to have to catch up on.

More than 4 percent of inmates sentenced to death in the United States are probably innocent, according to a study published Monday that sent shock waves across the anti-death penalty community.

What the researchers call a "conservative estimate" about the number of wrongfully convicted death row inmates is more than double the percentage of capital defendants who were exonerated during more than three decades that were studied. That means innocent people are languishing behind bars, according to the study.

“The great majority of innocent people who are sentenced to death are never identified and freed," said Samuel Gross, lead author of the study and a University of Michigan Law School professor, in a statement. "The purpose of our study is to account for the innocent defendants who are not exonerated."

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-crisis-american-death-penalty

THE EXONERATED: A Numerical Summary

TOTAL EXONERATIONS SINCE 1973
116

EXONERATIONS BY STATE
Florida 21 California 3
Illinois 18 Missouri 3
Louisiana 8 Indiana 2
Arizona 7 Massachusetts 2
Oklahoma 7 South Carolina 2
Texas 7 Idaho 1
Alabama 5 Kentucky 1
Georgia 5 Maryland 1
North Carolina 5 Mississippi 1
Pennsylvania 5 Nebraska 1
New Mexico 4 Nevada 1
Ohio 4 Virginia 1
Washington 1

EXONERATIONS BY RACE
Black 58 Latino 12
White 45 Other 1

EXONERATIONS BY GENDER
Male 115 Female 1

EXONERATIONS BASED UPON DNA EVIDENCE
14

BASIS FOR EXONERATION
Acquittal 40 Pardoned 7
Charges
Dropped 69

AVERAGE NUMBER OF YEARS OF
INCARCERATION BEFORE EXONERATION
9
TOTAL YEARS OF INCARCERATION BEFORE EXONERATION
1,042

Off to the ignore list for you.

[True Blue Door]

23. Nothing whatsoever goes on in these people's heads.

Something triggers their fear or hate, and they make up whatever twisted rationalizations are needed to justify acting on it.

They are fonts of thought-terminating cliches and alternate universe scenarios.

I find it easy to answer their ridiculous hypotheticals though:

"What if someone murdered a member of your family?"
"What if the state executed an innocent member of your family?"

"What if your family would be saved by smacking around some terrorist?"
"What if the government calls your family terrorists and wants to 'smack them around' without trials?"

They're just not capable of seeing themselves in other people's situation. They're empathically crippled sociopaths. The argument doesn't convince them, but it does reveal them as dangerous morons and criminals to everyone else.

[The2ndWheel]

24. Morals are relative

Which is itself a relative statement.

It would be great if there was a book of some kind, maybe a list of rules or something, that everyone could agree with, on how to live life. A lot of problems would go away. No such things exists though, so we sort of make things up as we go along. Not all that objective. Things change depending on time and place in any given circumstance.

Admittedly a tricky way to go through life, but it's all we got. Unless you can find that one book or something.

[JonLP24]

26. I really liked the movie Unthinkable

I know a lot probably didn't like it due to the subject matter and the premise to the plot is incredibly flawed but the whole point of the movie is literally the ticking time bomb scenario. It does a good job of asking the tough questions but it goes completely off the rails towards the end, it comes across as a parody

You see similar mindset when it comes noble cause corruption. A cop who knowns someone is guilty but doesn't have enough evidence to send 'em away will manufacture evidence -- OJ Simpson "they tried to frame a guilty man" which is something they do often but for one reason or another you see this cop 6th sense turning out be inaccurate in some cases.

Ask him what if we torture an innocent man none that it should matter.

[ck4829]

29. One of the things they don't like, they hate even, is asking them if they were accused of whatever

"Late at night, someone is grabbed from their bed, it's the police and they JUST KNOW that a nuclear device will be detonated immediately, they have captured a suspect and say that waterboarding and torture will work... only problem is that you are the one who was captured."

Elicits some pretty funny responses, it simply does not compute with them that the finger of suspicion could ever be pointed at them, and I think that's a major part of being OK with the morally indefensible, they are convinced that it's never going to be them so they don't need to worry about it.

It's kind of like the saying "You need to break some eggs to make an omelet", the people who advocate that as a way of doing things are sure someone else will always be the egg.

[peace13]

31. It is a waste of time trying to talk with these folks.

Visualize a a flat line hum with a rope of fear and greed laced through it. They have no moral compass and zero compassion. Also...they can't think for themselves. Every idea that they share with you was someone else's.

[KitSileya]

33. Ask them how they would feel if they were thought to be an accomplice of said kidnapper

They are innocent, but the father of the kidnapping victim thinks they are working with the kidnapper. How would they want to be treated in such a case? What about their kid? Would they be willing to accept their kid being tortured if they were a suspect in a case?