Outright majority

[solarbird]

A new Pew poll shows that 54% of Americans support torture. This number has risen consistently over the last year in the Pew data; I speculate that this rise is related to the Obama administration's efforts to conceal torture evidence and refusal to allow investigations or prosecutions. In this way, the institutionalisation and normalisation of torture continues. Only 25% of Americans now say torture is never justified. Greenwald:

Just think about that. Torture is one of the most universal taboos in the civilized world. The treaty championed by Ronald Reagan declares that "no exceptional circumstances" can justify it, and requires that every state criminalize it and prosecute those who authorize or engage in it. But only 25% of Americans agree with Ronald Reagan and this Western consensus that torture is never justifiable. Worse, 54% of Americans believe torture is "often" or "sometimes" justified. When it comes to torture, the vast bulk of the country is now to the "right" (for lack of a better term) of Ronald Reagan, who at least in words (if not in deeds) insisted upon an absolute prohibition on the practice and mandatory prosecution for those responsible.

In other news, Bill Nelson (D-NE) plans to introduce a clone of the Stupak-Pitts anti-abortion amendment to the health care plan in the Senate. That'll be fun. Also, here's a really interesting article on Dubai. It was published last April, but I didn't see it until now. Pro tip: Don't be a foreign worker in Dubai.

Comments

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I'm going to further speculate that the rise is due not to the actions of any given politician, but due rather to the absolute fiction that Torture Works. And I'm going to further speculate that this fiction is promulgated mostly by 24 . . . appropriately aired on the Fox Network.

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

I think this is spot on. A lot of people think torture gets you the truth, when in fact what torture gets you is anyfuckingthing that the torturee thinks might get it to stop. It is tempting, but probably excessively paranoid, to speculate that this change in consensus is specifically intended by the producers and/or network....

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I reached that speculation by considering all the torture scenes in television. 24 was the only show I could recall having any such positive scenes. It's also wildly popular.

I'm a materialist. I'd be very happy to see a roster of torture scenes in television over the last decade and compare that to rosters from former decades.

Until then, though, I reserve the right to incubate my personal paranoia with cherry-picked data points and possibly spurious connections. ;-)

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

Just to be clear, I'm not disputing causation. I think you're correct that the show has this effect. The part I think is possibly too paranoid is my speculation that this was intentional and committed with malice aforethought.

[solarbird]

The producer of the show is a big Bush fan and a torture supporter, so I don't think it's even a little bit paranoid to assert that the show wherein torture is always justified and always works to reveal always critical information and never false information is intended to shape opinion about torture.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

He produced that Fox Weekend-Update-clone bomb?!? Chomps on stogies with Limbaugh?!? Damn, this guy is a hard-core righty.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

That's how I originally interpreted your comment. We're cool.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I've had the same feeling about black presidents in US film and television. For the last decade good president = black, bad president = white. (not saying there's anything wrong with this, but I think it's the same sort of situation; fiction preparing people for real life).

Wouldn't it be nice for Jack Bauer to torture the hell out of someone only to have it turn out to be the wrong guy, and have the time he wastes on using the "information" he got from torturing be the difference between saving the world and not. That would be far more realistic.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

On your second paragraph, Yes!

I even thought it would be cool for him to torture the right guy, but one that didn't have the info. To keep from being tortured, he makes up something that turns out disastrously wrong for poor Jack.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

It never ceases to amaze me when Americans can't understand why so much of the world calls them barbarians.

[mtext.livejournal.com]

Once again, The Onion calls it (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32865) years in advance...

---

66 Percent Of U.S. Citizens Object To Torture In Nonetheless Frightening Poll
June 16, 2004 | Issue 40•24

CAMBRIDGE, MA—The results of a USA Today-CNN-Gallup poll released Monday show that 66 percent of Americans object to the use of torture during times of war. "We can be proud that the majority of citizens stand against our military personnel's use of torture," Harvard statistician William Stover said. "And it's somewhat comforting that, of the 34 percent of Americans who advocate torture, 72 percent said it should be used only when other methods of discipline have failed." Reassuringly, 97 percent of Americans were against the torture of U.S. soldiers or citizens by non-Americans.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

OMFG!!! Be afraid!!! (http://www.obsidianfields.com/lj/seesomething.jpg)

[avram]

I'm not surprised about the torture-support stat. There's a reason the US is the only western nation that still has the death penalty; that we imprison such a massive proportion of our population, and joke about prison rape; that we go to war so often and so gleefully.

[sheistheweather]

I want to know what the poll's sample size is, who they sampled, how they sampled, etc.

[solarbird]

The Pew Centre is a reputable agency. Here's the full report (PDF, large); the methodology overview (with margins of error and so on) starts on page 59. There are far more details here as well.

[sheistheweather]

The sample size appears to be 2000 at the maximum, which doesn't seem like enough to make such assertions about the country at large.

I'm not trying to say that the attitudes aren't a problem. They are. I'm just skeptical about the statistical funny-money here.

[solarbird]

2000 is pretty large for this kind of survey. Their reported margin of error and confidence numbers are consistent with their sample size, which are all pretty well-studied mathematics. You can read some of the math of this here and here and here and, of course, at Wikipedia.

It's possible, of course, that all this is wrong, but this is pretty old methodology and math here, and if it's wrong, so are... most other surveys, everywhere, really.

[solarbird]

I should clarify: if the actual number is wrong outside of their margin of error and confidence numbers. That's what those are for, of course. ^_^

[mtext.livejournal.com]

C'moooooooooon 20th time out of 20!

[ankh-f-n-khonsu.livejournal.com]

These are dark, dark days. :(

[oh6.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of when I realized that the modern-day counterpart of Severian in The Book of the New Sun was one of the guys at Abu Ghraib. It sharpened my mental image of the loathing that citizens of the Commonwealth had for the Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence.

[lickingtoad.livejournal.com]

Read the article on Dubai -- skeery stuff. As an aside, though, ever since I read 'Dune' I refuse to live anywhere that has to import 100% of its water from somewhere else.

[mtext.livejournal.com]

Hey, that (http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/569.pdf) isn't the same survey as this one (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/30/religion.torture/) is it? Because the takeaway from this one (also by Pew) is that there's 54% support among people who go to church at least once a week while support of torture "at least sometimes" from the population at large is still a (non-)sigh-of-relief-inducing 49%, with support much higher among the evangelicals and much lower among the "mainline Protestant" denominations and non-religious.