Torture fails to make us safe, but it certainly makes us less free.
While the notion that torture works has been glorified in television shows and movies, the simple truth is this: torture has never been an effective interrogation method.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Torture is often portrayed as effective in media, but in reality, it is ineffective for gathering truthful information.
This quote highlights the misconception that torture is a viable method for obtaining reliable information from individuals, a narrative perpetuated by media portrayals. The author emphasizes that, despite its dramatic representation in television and film, evidence shows that torture does not produce effective or truthful results, thereby questioning its ethical implications and drawing attention to the need for more humane interrogation methods.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about human rights, you might reference this quote to argue against the use of torture.
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Self is the only oil that makes the chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concerns.
Without you, without your onslaughts, without your uprootings of us, we should remain all our lives inert, stagnant, puerile, ignorant both of ourselves and of God. You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ: it is you, matter, that I bless.
Man has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.
Truth and falsehood are opposed; but truth is the norm not of truth only but of falsehood also.
Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.
Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs.