Afaik, Americans can have their citizenship taken away, and then be treated as enemy combatants.
It's not just seen as politically expedient to vote for torture, it is politically expedient to vote for torture.
There are all too many people who say "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." This assumes that everyone who's convicted is guilty, and removes all responsibility for moderating the level of punishment.
And there's a tremendous amount of popular art with interrogation scenes based on the premise that torture and/or threats of torture is a quick reliable way of getting the truth with no bad side effects worth mentioning.
When I've described such art as a bad thing, the most common answer has been "but if it were done differently, it wouldn't be any fun". The US has had a pro-torture culture for a long, long time (how about getting suspects to agree to plea bargains by threatening to give them a cell mate who will rape them?)--9/11 just made it obvious.
no subject
It's not just seen as politically expedient to vote for torture, it is politically expedient to vote for torture.
There are all too many people who say "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." This assumes that everyone who's convicted is guilty, and removes all responsibility for moderating the level of punishment.
And there's a tremendous amount of popular art with interrogation scenes based on the premise that torture and/or threats of torture is a quick reliable way of getting the truth with no bad side effects worth mentioning.
When I've described such art as a bad thing, the most common answer has been "but if it were done differently, it wouldn't be any fun". The US has had a pro-torture culture for a long, long time (how about getting suspects to agree to plea bargains by threatening to give them a cell mate who will rape them?)--9/11 just made it obvious.