Is it justifiable to put suspected terrorists under great physical duress?

I can see both sides of this question. Both authors make good points on whether torture is right or wrong. I don't think I could ever be the person to torture another person because it would be morally wrong in my beliefs. Hypothetically, if we capture a person who has information on a threat that is going to happen in the next 24 hours, are we just going to let them sit there or are we going to try and get it out of them? Everybody would agree we should try to get the information out of that person, but I don't think that getting it out of them should amount to torture. On the other side, if we were to torture someone, couldn't they just tell the interrogator a lie to stop the torture?
I do think that Krauthammer made a better point in his argument, but I don't think torture to a certain extent is okay. We are supposed to be a land of the free, but President Bush declared that the Geneva Convention, signed years ago, applies to detainees, but not to unlawful combatants and the use of justified interrogating techniques are able to be used. Krauthammer said that only the prisoners that should be tortured are terrorists and those with information about pending terrorist events. I agree with Krauthammer that torture should only be used in a dire situation.
Andrew Sullivan does not support torture and says that the information the terrorists give us is unreliable and thus unlikely to save lives. I agree with this. He states that "to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder-just as animals are not deemed morally responsible for killing." We shouldn't lower our morale just to try and get information out of them because they still did something terrible.
I don't believe that so many people should be tortured, but under dire circumstances we should get the information we need. I am glad to live in the United States because I know we are protected from that kind of treatment as long as we are law-abiding citizens. Though I am disgraced by the government because they are corrupt in dealing with other countries and some of the things going on in our country. I could not believe that they bring suspects to other countries to torture them. I hope someday our government and country is a true symbol of freedom and justice.

Dead Teen Walking

I do not think that Shareef Cousin should have been put on death row. There are five specific reasons why he is innocent. The witness didn't even have her glasses on, there was no physical evidence to put Cousin at the scene of the crime, he had a basketball game that night from which his coach dropped him off at a time that would have bbeen impossible for him to have done it, and three of his team mates were in the car too but were "mysteriously" gone when the defense lawyers were about to call them in. These are all legitimate alibies for Cousin to have not done the crime. Even if he had, I still don't believe he should be put on death row because he is a juvenile and he was having a tough time in life at that time. I see a connection between the two readings because he was having a rough time in his life when he supposedly shot someone, as White Fang became more and more vicious as he was kept in Beauty Smith's dog fighting escapades. Cousin thought he had found his father, but the man disowned him as White Fang's mother disowned him when she had a different litter of puppies. It just goes to show how something like that can affect someone so deeply. I think White Fang impacted my viewpoint on it a little bit. I don't think every person who murders someone should be put on death row, but there is also a point at which juveniles who have had a really tough life don't know how to deal with their anger so they take it out on somebody that doesn't matter to them.

What Makes Us Moral?

The morality of every human being is not the same. Nobody has yet been able to figure out what makes us do the things we do. There are so many people in the world that are so unselfish that they will give other people their own body parts, while others are serial killers. As the article shows, it seems that young people don't want to do things that they know are bad even when they are told it is okay to do so. Researchers are trying to figure out where certain intuitions come from because it could maybe help us in the future from becoming savage. I love stories that shows the beautiful gifts of people or animals helping others and I like to believe that people are truly just doing kind things out of the goodness of their heart.
It is hard to look at the study they did with the trolley dilemma. Everybody would want to save the five people at no cost, but it is hard when it comes to saving five lives or one. I think that I couldn't kill the unsuspecting man to save the five people because deep down you know you killed that man. A study also showed that people who aren't familiar with another, don't have anything in common with a person they love, feel like they don't need to have the same respect for them. We are still a little bit savage people, but hopefully as studies and research is done we can fix that.

White Fang or Lord of the Flies

I liked White Fang much more than Lord of the Flies. I felt like I connected more to White Fang. Jack London thought that society had a great effect on a human or in this case wolf/dog. I agree more with him than with William Golding. I also think I liked it better because I like dogs and books set in nature.