Pretty sure that that box doesn't fit the justice department definition of torture. Rush Limbaugh could even call it a harmless prank, like fraternity hazing!

Hmmm... I think we actually sell something like that at the store in which I work... I'll check this evening.

Hmm...a start, if nothing else...

Hehe, I thought that was a take out of Bioshock for a moment, but the kinds of torture you can give in that game don't require devices. :P

The guy on the left reminds me of Fallout's "mascot" for some reason. Must be the hair.

WINNAH!!

The S&M community has been onto this idea for DECADES!

Hm..you know, I thought for sure I saw this in Wal-Mart today in housewares..

I hate to be the rival company that has to beat that.

As if anyone uses old torture anymore. You can torture anyone with anything. Sometimes all you need is a rubber hose, or a simple piece of wood, or a clothing hanger and a ceiling fan motor. In Iraq, one of the more common torture techniques was simply strapping someone in a chair and setting the chair upside down, strapping their legs to the chair legs, and beating the bottoms of their feet with clubs to the point of perminant nerve damage, assuring that those people would never be able to walk ever again without extreme pain.

And its funny how torture is not something that is new, and it only seems to be an issue now because of our current president.

So how come we get called torturers for dunking a guy's head in some water but noone says anything about the mutilated corpses dumped by militants and terrorists on an almost daily basis?

How come a photo of a guy standing on a box with wires hooked up only to himself stirs so much outrage,but a video of a guy getting his head sawed off is considered acceptable behavior?

Frankly,I'd rather be taken prisoner by our guys over the enemy any day of the week.

Because the "good guys" are supposed to be above that sort of thing, because the "good guys" have signed international conventions promising that they won't do such acts, and because how can the "good guys" condemn the bad guys for doing bad things that the "good guys" are prepared to do as well?

If the "good guys" do the same despicable things that the bad guys do, then what really is the difference between them?

Would you consider waterboarding etc torture if the bad guys were doing it to YOU? Or is it a case of "it's not torture if we do it"?

(And I'd LOVE to know where you got the idea that "a video of a guy getting his head sawed off is considered acceptable behavior"...)

No,in comic books and in the minds of the terminally naive do the "good guys" take a moral high road when going the low road will get you better results.

Lets say you caught a guy whom you KNOW is a terrorist. There's no second guessing this one,he's one of them. You got him red handed. He even admits to it. You also know he has information about where the enemy is and what they're planning. Odds are,he's not going to just hand over this information.

So what do you do? Do you take the moral high road and not torture him,letting him keep his secrets while innocent people die in attack after attack or do you fry that piggy and make him spill the beans and prevent those deaths at the discomfort of one guy?

And make no mistake,those "torture sessions" are really about minor discomfort. Frankly,I can't figure how you can cause permanent nerve damage whacking someone's feet with a paddle. Maybe temporary discomfort,but permanent nerve damage? Come on. We're talking about a part of the human body that's DESIGNED to be pounded on. The only think I can think of is the guy got fallen arches or something from it. And frankly,he brought it on himself for holding out. They don't work over just anyone,you know.

Simply put,given the option between being water boarded and having my nipples sanded off,I'd have to go with the water boarding. Which just goes to show we ARE better than them. We're just not pussies who will stand by and let assholes do whatever they want and then be expected to serve 'em tea and biscuits.

And before you pull that Geneva Convention crap,go read the damn thing,especially the part on torture. It's fucking vague and it's that way for a reason. So we can weasel around it if we have to. This is a WAR. Bad things happen in WAR. That's why war is generally a bad thing to have happen. Unfortunately,it's also sometimes NECESSARY. The world's not a bad place,but it's not all sunshine and lollipops either. There are some fucked up hardcore assholes out there who won't stop at anything short of a bullet in the brain.

But,then,I don't expect you to understand that. There are just some people who refuse to acknowledge a problem until it moves in with them,eats a loved one,and shits on their carpet for a month. It's just not a problem til it effects them personally.

Well,I don't see a lot of people getting pissed off about the beheading video as much as the pictures of a naked man pile,so yeah,seems like it's a lot more accepted.

In the end,the world's all about compromise and balance. I try to be a good person,but at the end of the day,I can only be as good a person as other people let me. I can make the offer to help,but it's the other guy's call to accept that help. And at the end of the day,if someone decides to make a choice of him or me,I'm going to make damn sure it's him,cause I ain't giving up my life for some idiot's ideals.

You DO realise waterboarding is simulated drowning, right? Shit, a CIA guy recently admitted that was torture.

You DO realise that no amount of torture will persuade someone to surrender a secret they don't possess? If they don't talk, how far will you go? And if they DO talk, how do you know what they are telling you is the truth - or if they are simply telling you what you want to hear to stop the pain?
And how does that make you different from the terrorists? They do vile acts for their cause, you do vile acts for your cause... tell me, what makes you better than them again?

You want to throw away the Geneva Convention? Fine. Don't complain when the other guys do torture to you and your countrymen, don't expect anyone to believe a single word that you say, accept that you've now sunk to the level of tinpot dictatorships and the terrorists that you despise, and don't expect anyone else to lift a finger in helping you because you've just abrogated any semblance of respect.

Oh and by the way, you just lost your "war".

In his view,yes. But,if you'd read the Geneva Convention,LIKE I TOLD YOU TO BEFORE YOU CONTINUED WITH YOUR STUPIDITY,you'd know that it defines torture as "the *UNDUE* use of force to persuade an individual". That means the very DEFINITION of torture by the Geneva Convention's standards varies from situation to situation,meaning what's torture in one instance is acceptable in another. Which brings us back to the point of "what do you consider torture?" It's all basically opinion.

As for what makes us different,well,our torture methods have a lower chance of hurting someone. Most people who are waterboarded are never in actual danger. As opposed to the terrorists,who actually cut your ass up and do terrible things to you with power tools. I guess it comes down to a difference between *simulated* drowning and *actually* cutting someone to pieces.

Another way we differ is *why* we use "torture". We do it to try to protect people by getting information out of the bad guys to better defend said people. They do it as a show of how fucking psycho they are. It's kind of like the difference between killing someone for fun and shooting someone to prevent them from killing you. One makes you a monster,the other makes you a hero. Can you guess which is which?

Also,I don't recall electrocution being used to torture anyone by the US. The closest thing I heard about was when the prison abuse photos came out,one guy in a hood had wires attached to his hands and was TOLD if he got down off a box,he'd be electrocuted. The wires,in actuality,were never hooked up to anything but the guy,so he was in no actual danger except for mental distress.

Hey,I could claim this conversation is causing me mental distress and,therefore,you're torturing me. YOU MONSTER!!! Also,you self-loathing losers have been declaring the war is lost for a long time now. Even when we're winning,we're losing in your eyes. Maybe it's time to stop living in denial and come around to the idea that sometimes,violence does work.

So it isn't really torture if there's no "real" danger, even if it seems real, even if the subject does not know there is no "real" danger?

By the way, I went looking for the Geneva Convention's definition of torture and couldn't find it. All I found were references like Article 17: "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."

I'd be happy to be shown where this definition that includes the word "undue" (or even a similar word) exists, but considering the following "nor any other form of coercion" (and notice the lack of such a qualifier here), I seriously doubt it exists.

Nope,it's just fucking with someone's head. I mean,if discomfort and mental distress was torture,they'd have shut down most high schools by now. And places of business. Prisons. Damn near everything,I guess.

And yet,the Geneva Convention doesn't seem to protect our soldiers. But,of course,you're disturbed when our guys twist a few arms. Come to think of it,I can't think of anyone who's followed the Geneva Convention during any conflict. I guess it's just one of those "good faith" things people sign but don't really observe. Cause frankly,just looking at that thing,every country who's signed it has violated it. So,really,what is the point?

Also,the thing I was talking about? Turns out it's the international law regarding torture,not the Geneva Convention. Sorry about the mix up.

The real sticking-point is the definition of 'prisoner of war'. The Geneva convention was drawn-up in an age where the only concieved of major conflicts would be between soverign nations, usually over territorial concerns. A 'Prisoner of War' was someone who you caught participating in a War in your country while wearing the uniform of one of the nations you were at-war with. All trying to make things nice and civilized. The Geneva Convention specificly excluded spies and saboteurs from the 'prisoner of war', so you engaged in sneaky-bastard tactics at your own risk.

Now we're engaged in conflict with a force that is not represented by any single sovering or coherent entity with defined borders, and nobody knows what to classify Terrorists and Insurgents as in a legal sense. Are they Prisoners of War? Are they Spies and Saboteurs? Are they Common Criminals? Which of these categories they belong to defines what can or cannot be done to them.

My wife has nerve damage in her feet, so I know something about the subject, about how much pain it causes on a daily basis, about how it affects your daily life. You, sir, are a complete fucking imbecile with all the compassion and life experience of a retarded starfish. Throw a handful of carpet tacks in your shoes, lace them up real tight, go run a marathon, and then tell me how much abuse feet are "designed" to take. I can tell you've never come close to drowning, either, otherwise you would have some comprehension just how terrifying it is. Hmm, terrifying ... terrorists. Gee, who ARE the terrorists anyway? I can't tell anymore!

If you think "nobody" was upset about the beheading video, then your stupidity and myopia is even deeper and broader, and your lack of perception even more profound than your already-moronic statements, poor spelling and lousy grammar could possibly convey. Even the Al Queda was telling the kidnappers "hey guys, stop it, you're pissing off our own people." If America is doing the same thing, then expect to see a lot MORE of that kind of treatment of prisoners. We are not a dictatorship because we choose to show a better way than dictatorships. We are not a monarchy because we try to show a better way than monarchies. We ARE supposed to be the "good guys" and it's not a comic book platitude. Without our principles, the United States means NOTHING. Burn the flag after that -- it's just a useless rag with no values backing it up. Values you cannot comprehend, given that others would give up their lives for YOUR ideals, even though you ARE an idiot.

All the world's torturers point to the good ol' USA and say "Hey, they're doing it, so it must be the Right thing to do." John McCain, who was a recipient of torture while a POW is one of the staunchest opponents of using it (what, doesn't he want REVENGE??). Most of the CIA interrogators dismiss torture it as a useful technique, not because they're squeamish, but because they say you get lousy intel from it. It accomplishes nothing useful, but it does provide all the Idi Amins and Mgubes of the world an excuse to be even bigger bastards to their own people, and we can't say shit about it. Our plummeting standing in the world since we started taking the Idi Amin road shows just how successful that route is.

As for being a good person -- I can't even count the number of ways you FAIL

Ok,so someone paddled her feet to get that way or did she get it some other way? Cause that's the point I'm trying to make if you'd bother to actually read what was written. I'm saying that feet paddling causing nerve damage is a highly unlikely thing to my experience,not that feet can't get nerve damage. I've never heard of anyone getting nerve damage in their butt from a paddling either and people do that for fun all the time.

Actually,it's a funny thing. I saw a guy getting water boarded,at least one form of it where they put a wet rag over your head,in a movie. So I decided to see how bad it was. All it did was clear my sinuses. So,yeah,once again,not that bad.

And I never said nobody was upset about the beheading,I said there's a lot less fuss over a much more brutal violation of human rights compared to our "torture" methods. Learn to read,noob.

But when it's all said and done,you want us to play by the rules while everyone else in the world does whatever the hell they want. Common sense dictates if noone else is following the rules,why the hell should we?

Morality and high ideals won't save your ass when a bunch of assholes show up on your doorstep and start wrecking up the place,cause hey,what are you gonna do about it? Take the "moral high road" and let them have their way,especially with your wife,or "sink to their level" and start making some consequences to their actions? And no,it doesn't matter if you call the cops to do it cause they'll end up having to resort to violence anyway,so you're just calling in the fascists to do the dirt work for you.

Also,I have a spelling checker so,yeah,another nail in the "you're stupid and wrong" coffin for ya'.

You do realise there's a difference between getting waterboarded believing the guys doing it won't let any real harm come to you, and getting waterboarded believing the guys doing it will keep doing it and possibly kill you if you don't give them the information that they want. Right?

Wait a minute, wet rag? Dude, look it up.

Morality and high ideals won't save your ass when a bunch of assholes show up on your doorstep and start wrecking up the place,cause hey,what are you gonna do about it? Take the "moral high road" and let them have their way,especially with your wife,or "sink to their level" and start making some consequences to their actions? And no,it doesn't matter if you call the cops to do it cause they'll end up having to resort to violence anyway,so you're just calling in the fascists to do the dirt work for you.

Hahahaha! Oh man, I thought you were serious for a second. Nice subtle allusion to the American invasion of Iraq there, but now I know you're just a troll. Very funny, GG.

Yeah,that's what makes it work. If they knew we had to stop short of killing them,they wouldn't crack so easy. But lets turn that around. Are the guys who do it to get information to save lives as bad as the guys who do it as a means to murder you slowly?

Yes,I poured water on it too. The whole deal. Just cleared my sinuses. I guess most people don't know they can close off their nasal passages just like most don't know they can stop the hiccups with a little muscle control and exhaling. Just cause you don't know how to do it doesn't make it impossible. Just impossible to you.

No,it's an allusion to a bunch of assholes who's idea of fun is to bust up someone else's place. The invasion of Iraq is more along the lines of kicking the crap out of the annoying neighbor who pulls small time crap to keep from getting into trouble with the law while bugging the hell out of you. That's an allusion to the invasion of Iraq. :p

Is there a Deluxe pack with pins for sticking into fingernails? I got a congressman neighbor I need to surprise (not really)

you're kidding...if you are not republican? I will start gurrella warfare if that happens.

See the electric device is too complicated and there is no art or style with it.... Now if you use a red hot skinning knife you can cut and cautorize the wound at the same time....

How much?

*chuckles evilly* oh karno, if only you knew the wonders we could show you... (bdsm phinny)

love the box though, and cool concept:)

It reminds me of that last page in comics long ago with the x-ray glasses and sea monkeys.

hmmmmm where can I buy one?