As much as it pains me to say so, I have to agree with SwamP_ThinG. Torture is simply not sanctionable, especially tying a guy to a chair and beating him until he gives up the information. Holding someone in jail because you "just know he did it" is kind of the same thing. We, as a society, have to be better. We have to live to a different code. We have to have better information and ensure that the information is correct.

Torture and wrongful imprisonment are the easy ways out.

Of course it would be harder for me to hold this position if it were my children or my wife or anyone else I cared deeply about. But I would have to hold it, and I would have to effectuate change so that it never happens again.

If my children or my wife were killed, and I knew who did it, there would be no measure of suffering that I would bring down upon the person or persons who did it. I would torture them severely before they died (which would not be for a very long time). But this is after the fact. To torture a person before the crime is to run the risk that I am torturing the wrong person.

I don't hold this view based on the theory that violence begets violence, as SwamP_ThinG has proposed.

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In this country, we don't need reasons to make things legal; we need reasons to make things illegal. - Startup