The most vocal GOP proponent of torture continues to be Dick Cheney, repeatedly saying that torture gets results. The implied other part to that statement is that torture is the only sucessful way to get results.
It is my belief this misses almost the entire point on the issue of torture, not if it works or doesn't work (it doesn't) but that's it's just wrong.
The hit television series "24", quoted as such I can only imagine because of how much watching clips of it makes me want to hit my television, has been actually referenced by politicians as a justification for torture. While people both here in America and in the United Kingdom agree that this is completely insane, it continues to be cited as a justification for evil.
I use the term evil very intentionally. I recognize that evil is a completely subjective term and that my definition of what is good and bad in a society are different than in others. However I would argue that there is a human constant that all people would say that they would not wish to be tortured, not all people would argue that you should not eat pork, slaughter cows, burn coal, etc.
Growing up I was taught that some things were wrong, hurting people was wrong, lying was wrong, war was to be avoided at all costs and all people should be valued as equals. I still believe that and as I've grown older I've come to realize that life is short and it's not how you die that counts it's how you live.
If I had two options of how to be remembered, one that I could be remembered as having died at the age of 30 in a bombing of an American city by a terrorist, or that I lived to 90 by torturing people who may or may not have information that could protect me, I would choose to be remembered as a patriot, you know, someone willing to die for what they believe in. For some reason the GOP wants to give that up. What happened to "Live Free or Die"? I think that quote could easily be updated to "Live or Die with American Values".
I realize that in this argument I'm making a false choice, that there's absolutely no evidence that torture really gets useful information from people and that there are certainly better ways of getting information. But that's not my point, my point is that even if torture worked as a method of interrogation we should still not use it because it's just wrong.
I'm not naive and I'm not entirely a pacifist either, but there are far more things that I'm willing to die for than I'm willing to torture people for to try to stay safe. Even if it worked, it would still be wrong and it would still be a crime.
I think that torture eliminates an essential liberty for us all and we should stand up for justice and demand that torture never again be used in the defense of "American Values". The America I want to live in values freedom and justice above all else and I will not trade my values for any illusion of safety and I would hope that other people feel the same way.
I close with a qoute from Benjamin Franklin regarding this very issue:
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
About 250 years later, I second that sentiment.