Torture is wrong
This amazing moral insight comes from Avedon Carol over at The Sideshow, who says that obvious as this is, there are an awful many people who just don’t get this –and trying to convince them otherwise is useless:
You don’t argue with these people on this subject. There’s no point. And you have to remember that the things they believe – about the place of women, about the depravity of Bill Clinton’s sex life, about gays and liberals – are just things they were told. It wasn’t: “Don’t you see that homosexuality is morally wrong?” It was: “Homosexuality is wrong.” These people aren’t moral reasoners, they’re what happens when you let graffiti stay on a blank wall.
These people want to torture. They will accept any reasoning that justifies torture. They will reject your arguments against it. So don’t waste your time.
Just say: “Torture is wrong.” It’s just that simple. Decent people understand this. No argument is necessary. You can embellish it with, “Torture is immoral,” or “Only thugs torture,” but intellectual persuasion is beside the point. If they don’t understand that torture is wrong, they shouldn’t be allowed out.
I would like to add that anybody who does try to debate why torture is wrong, and starts by poiting out it is pointless, has already lost half the battle. By debating the usefulness of torture you have already conceded that torture is morally justifiable. It is a sign of how morally wrong allowing torture is that its proponents have to come up with ridiculous scenarios about ticking a-bombs in the heart of New York City to even get people to consider torture may be needed sometimes; if you then debate them about these scenarios, they’ve won!