Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[mainiac]

In fact, in the eyes of, say, 14th century European the actions of inquisition were moral - "saving heretic's soul from damnation" or "ensuring your soul's eternal life" was an important part of their mindset. Just as yours is probably "spreading democracy", "the right to fight for one's freedom" and whatever else you particular society imbued you with.
This transient, fluid form of morality is one of the reasons why you shouldn't view any historical event through it, and claim objectiveness.

Argument about the subjectivist approach, not related to the inquisition question.  (though certainly facinating in it's own way!)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First:
I never advanced the superiority of the American vision of America.  And Gitmo is about neither spreading democracy or defending freedom.  It's about protection from terrorism.  That is based on the principle of self defense.

For one thing, this isn't just denying some local custom when it comes to morality.  No culture in history has ever denied the right to self protection.  The right might be overruled at times for the greater need, but terrorism is hardly the greater need.  So your argument that not all cultures would affirm that morality is wrong.  No culture ever has denied the morality of protecting lives without bloodshed.  It's not too surprising, because denying this principle is asking people to ignore an enormous amount of common sense.

Think about that.


But more broadly, what you are arguing is that morality does not exist.  And I don't think you are doing it particularly well.  In my opinion, the subjectivist approach doesn't deny morality, it just denies that people always know morality. 
Suppose for a second that there was a perfect codebook of morality, which could perfectly judge the morality of every action.  But the book was never opened.  How would human behavior be different?  Indeed, this book could exist right now, hidden in some corner of the cosmos where we will never find it.  A true moral standard to aspire to is not denied by people not knowing morality.  I don't know the laws of general relativity.  But I won't deny they exist.
The subjectivist approach is hardly new.  It doesn't apply to denying the existence of morality particularly well either.

But suppose for a moment that we adopt the subjectivist approach.  We assume that morality doesn't exist.  But the word you used "inquisition" is based on people's perceptions of reality.  When that word is used we think of illegitimate punishment, punishment for holding an idea. This is immoral behavior, according to what modern perceptions.  I'm not speaking to the 14th century audience or the 24th century audience, but to 21st century people.  While there's plenty of room to disagree about Gitmo among those of us in the 21st century, attacking it on the basis that it's goal is to suppress an idea is not one of them.  There is no idea that the Bush administration is seeking to suppress.  The idea of harm is not why they are detained.  They are detained for the actual harm they seek to do.

So really, it comes down to, I argue that a word does not apply and you turn around and say "but I don't accept your meaning of the word."  Well, that's all well and fine, but you have not suggested an improved definition.  There can not be a definition of inquisition which would simultaneously seek to deny the existence of the notion of morality and still retain any meaning.  So, if you mean to deny the notion of morality, then you really have no role in using terms who's meaning is derived from that notion.

A anti-subjectivist rant:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'd like to note that many people, upon discovering the subjectivist approach, seem to think that it is the ultimate answer, that it denies the meaning of anything.  But it's not the ultimate answer, it's just one method among many, subject to it's own limitations.  The subjective approach can not in fact, deny the existence or meaning of anything.  All it denies is the universality of a perception.  Applying this more generally, requires you to first demonstrate that an idea is nothing but a perception and has no effect on events and secondly that it is not possible for one group to be right and another to be wrong.

So when I was doing homework with a friend and she got 3.7 as the answer while I got 9.5, that didn't deny that an answer to the problem existed.  In fact, the problem was tautological, so the answer to the problem had to exist by definition.  And in fact we were both wrong, the answer was 3.2.  Despite us not knowing what the answer was, that didn't mean it did not exist nor did it stop the word "answer" from having meaning.

Book suggestions: Anything by Orwell.  He loved pointing out the absurdity of over applying the subjectivist approach and it shows up in pretty much anything he wrote.

[Il Palazzo]

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! IT'S A WALL OF TEXT!

post

Ok, I haven't been clear enough, I agree. Take two.
I'm not denying the exsistence of morality, merely pointing out that it's not the right tool for judging legitimacy.
1. My opinion on morality:
I view morality as an amalgamate of specific society's ever changing and evolving customs and taboos. It can vary as much as from person to person. With some skill, anybody can claim to have a moral superiority over somebody else and use the crime-against-morality argument to further his own cause. I do not accuse moral code of being an abomination that has to be purged. It is useful, and indeed, necessary as a birthplace of any eventual laws. Should some part of it be so universally(society-wise) agreed upon that it becomes incorporated into the law system, it loses it's ambiguity and (ideally)can no longer be used against otherwise innocent components of a given society.
I will not agree with anybody claiming that there exists some ideal moral code, that is inherent to every human being, and is universal, all-encompasing. There's just no reason to think that, and is purely a matter of personal belief, just like e.g. the God question.

2. Waht's wrong with using morality as a base for judgement.
If analyzing any given event, one cannot just discard the human mindset from which it emerged and that includes moral code. However, when trying to judge the same event, objectivism requires to ignore your(as a sciencist) moral background, or else it warps your image of the whole thing.

3. On a subjectivity of such a judgement.
Let's say that you decide to do so, then, it should be morality local to the event you're describing. In our contested comparision, you could call Guantanamo and invasion of Iraq a morally right thing to do from the point of view of an average american(you're defending your safety), and you could call inquisition a right way of dealing with a heretic(be it local reformator, excomunicated knight's order, or whole country rebelling as in the case of the Hussites - they're protecting the Church from extremists)
However, this approach gives rise to the subjectivism that you've mentioned, and gives pretty much meaningless answers, as any event can be called "good" or "bad" this way. It seems that we both agree that it's a pointless thing to do.
So, what can you do then? Either use your local morality for both, and become a proponent of it's superiority, or not judge it by it's right-or-wrong appearances at all. You will agree, I suppose, that there are multitude of other, not so vague, characteristics by which one can describe whatever event is there to describe.

4. Morally "right" defined as "lawful".
One more thing that you can do, is to define being moral or not by it's concordance with the local law. Should some action go against the letter of the law it can be objectively named illegitmate, or if one wishes, "bad", regardless of anybody's claims to it being otherwise moral or not and in any time and space frame of reference. The 'by-the-law morality' is dry and emotionless, it can be applied to any event without the danger of subjectivism.
From such a perspective, both Gntnm and Inq. are both illegitimate and immoral, as they both break the laws by unilaterally claiming moral superiority over them.

5. The most important similarity.
Note, that I do recognize the underlying 'rightousness' of the Gntnm(and inq. too) - to be allowed to defend yourself is a law-regulated right of every person in your society(western culture in general).

Spoiler: not every society had such a law/moral code (click to show/hide)

look at e.g. the feudal Japan, where local lord had every right to kill any of his serfs, or daimyo could order killing of any of his samurai+their families without giving any reasons for it, and it was immoral and unlawful to object and defend yourself.

However, it is this exact law that is being broken there - the detainees are refused the right to defend themselves(in court), the millenia-old law of presumption of innocence is being ignored. Inqisition at least maintained appearances by holding trials, however rigged they were(so the Gntnm is in a way even more illegitimate than inq. was).
This demagogueous usage of the most central idea on which the society in question is based, to gain acceptance from the populace for actions otherwise forbidden by law, is the 'meat' of the comparision that I've made some 10000 words earlier.

6. Fallacy of the 'self defence'(yes, I'm European) argument.
This is where the hypocricy enters the fray. You know, all these civil and international laws were constructed with regulating the right of defending yourself(person/country) from agression in mind(among other things, of course). If some country decides, in the light of some event that it no longer assures adequate safety, it has every right to change it's law system accordingly.
Instead, in Guantanamo, we have a outside-law activity that is being justified by it's supposed moral validity. America tries to maintain it's appearance of 'the good guy' while covertly acting in a generally unaceptable fashion. Just like the inquisition did.

7. Why is it dangerous to allow exceptions from the code of laws.
When some ruling entity decides to give moral issues precedence before the local law system, it effectively reverts back to barbarism, where might made right and undermines that personal safety's reliance on law, on which civilizations are built.
On an international stage, such a country loses it's reputation, and risks being regarded as an unpredictable entity, unreliable as an ally or partner, leaving only it's military/political dominance for protection. I'm not saying it's wrong or right, as you could expect, I'd rather be inclined to call it unreasonable or downright stupid, but it's not the point of this discussion(besides, we seem to agree there).

8. The question of popular perception of the Inquisition.
When comparing something to events/organisations like inquisition or nazism, fascism, crusades(just examples) I do expect people of certain level of education to see them for what they were without the fairy-tale halo that common folklore surrounded them with. That is, they're not meant as an insult, but as an indication of historical occurence.

9. On 'the homework' example
As long as the problem is tautological, as in mathematics, you can assume the existence of a specific answer. However, outside the body of maths(and related sciences, like physics, chemistry etc.), there is hardly any other ocasion for such an ideal outcome.
I do not suggest that we should abandon every other(non-natural) science, every non-tautological problem's analysis, because there is no ultimate answer. Anything can be described using roughly constant and generally accepted ideas. Morality is not such an idea, as it's way too variable.

Are these reasons enough for you to let me compare Guantanamo with the inquisiton without the danger of being resented?

[Samyotix]

People who try to escape reality by living in fantasies created within their own head?
To some extent, escapist lunatics ... but then, to some extent, we all create our "reality" out of what our senses tell us.

There's basic mechanisms useful in deciding what to think of an idea, asuch as Occam's Razor, which too many people are utterly unaware of.

Humans are a lazy, weak, cowardly bunch, generally: Instead of using our brain to sort out who we should believe, instead of examining each piece of communication and looking for the author's motivation, instead of thinking logically and methodically, we tend to believe things simply because it feels good, because there is a consensus among people close to us, or simply because everyone believes it.


IMO antisemites are likely to believe almost anything if someone rants to them about how "the Jews started the Iraq war to prevent the public from noticing that they are taking over Russia", despite the statement being utterly ridiculous bull***t.
Technophobes are likely to want to believe stories about how mobile phones cause brain tumors, or get into homeopathic "medicine".
America-Haters, or people who hate their own government, seem to find it cool to speculate about the CIA murdering Thousands of Americans, without there being any leaks, without any of the conspiracy nuts getting murdered. (Don't they get it? If there was a conspiracy that could pull THAT off, would it leave the conspiracy freaks alive?)

But seriously, how crazy does one have to be to believe the moon landing never happened? So the Russians helped NASA trick the entire world? Yeah sure.

And ... after nearly every disaster, there's been conspiracy theories. When we lost WWI, German-nationalist fraternities blamed it all on "Jews and Commies", which later led to the Holocaust.
Later we lost WWII, and conspiracy freaks are still around: One of our neighbors for example is to this day proud of having been at Stalingrad with the SS and vehemently denies any Nazi crime - guess he's either senile (tricked his own mind into perceiving his war experience as nice) or a lying criminal. Still, the "the Jews and Yankees wrote our history books, don't believe them, the Nazis never killed anyone" lie is a fairly popular theme with the non-edicated rural idiot class here.

And a couple of months ago right-wing politician Joerg Haider crashed his car while blind drunk (0.16 % blood alc) going at 170 kph (about 110 mph), which killed him due to a shattered spine etc. So far there's been a minimum of two blood tests: The widow apparently doubted that her hubby would have shared a bottle of Vodka with a stranger in a gay bar; but what I found most amazing was the reaction of many of his fans: Of course, it was a Mossad murder!

(The usual mixture of stupidity (not being aware that the Mossad presumably has better things to do than doing wetwork on failing provincial politicians), Hubris (believing Haider important enough for Israel to risk killing its relations with the EU), and refusing to believe reality because it's ugly (drunk driving is dangerous), and thinking it "cool" to believe this crap because hey, everyone else is doing it too.

Add to this how easy it is to make money from human stupidity: The 911-conspiracy-industry is a goldmine for bad authors who can't research, failed journalists who know nothing except how to be louder than anyone else and how to sell badly written books to idiots with too much cash.

...

[Immortal]

Also: apologies to Immortal for hijacking the thread. Still it's probably better than hijacking a plane. Besides, didn't everybody agree on the general silliness of the provided video?

Yes it was mostly agreed on, I was hoping someone would actually defend it. Either way this thread has become a decent debate since no one is acting stupid . I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Id change the title to something more suitable but it may attract idiots.

[mainiac]

Il Palazzo, I think we are going further and further astray from the question of if Gitmo is an Inquisition.  I'd like to debate the existance of morality with you, that's an exciting question.  But I'd like to settle the Gitmo-Inquistition debate first. So I'm going to refrain from any discussion on the existance of morality, because I think that that's ancilliary to where the debate is right now and can be avoided:

Whether or not morality exists, there is a cultural perception of legitimate and illegitimate behavior, moral and immoral rationals, that which should be legal and illegal, etc.  It has becoming apparent, that we have differing views about legitimacy and illegitimacy.  The key distinction in our debate so far appears to be disagreement on the right to dictate terms to others (specifically across cultural boundaries, but that doesn't yet appear to be essential to our debate).  You come down harshly on the idea of interventionism, as you are distrustful of people's ability to make judgement upon others (which could approximately call the "solely negative rights position" on this matter, which we could abbreviate to the "rights position")  I on the other hand would renounce this idea as impossible to achieve and believe that people must act in a responsible way towards each other, necessitating interventionism.  Therefore, I would argue (were we debating morality) that it is just to force others to do things against their will in certain situations.  (This can be generalized as the "both negative and positive rights position" in this matter, which we could abbreviate to the "duty position")

Now, let's set aside for the moment whether the rights or duties position is correct (keeping in mind that these are abbreviations, not summaries of the viewpoints.)  But we should note that people are generally very familiar with both of these viewpoints intuitively (although they generally don't spell them out this way.)  Human interaction is very intimately dependent on these types of rights.  We will tell people that they have treated us unjustly, saying they have broken the rights position.  We will also rationalize our actions through the duty position.  Even children will recognize these rationales in the intuitive sense.  ("You can't do that!" "Well you started it!")  And they are often coded into laws, countries grant citizens both protection against the state and each other (rights position) and dictate ways citizens can seek recourse (duty position.)  Trials are often about balancing the right position and duty position.  One famous conflict through the ages could be sumerized as:
"You attacked me!" (asserting rights position violation)
"But you were breaking into my house!" (asserting duty position justification)
"But I was running away when you attacked!" (denying that the duty position applies)
"You had already broken the law and I had no way of knowing if I was safe!" (maintaining the assertion of the duty position by insisting that the rights position violation grants a duty position authority to act.)

You might say that all of this acts upon the assumption that morality exists, and use subjectivism to attack the notion that there is any moral difference between these actions.  But I am not trying to assert that any morality exists in these positions.  I am arguing that people are familiar with these terms.  When one human imposes will upon another, it is human nature to frame the matter in the terms of the two viewpoints I have abrieviated to the "rights position" and "duty position."  I may be wrong for assuming these views have meaning, but I am not wrong for asserting that they are commonly recognized.

Now, getting the the Gitmo-Inquisition matter.

When we, inhabitants of the "western" world in the 21st century, use the term inquisition, it invokes certain expectations.  In the most specific case, we are talking about the use of torture, imprisonment and fear to force a group of Jews and Muslims to practice Catholicism in the 15th century "The Spanish Inquisition." 
However, the general application of the word "inquisition" is towards behaviors that are judged to share certain traits.  Generally speaking, when fear or punishment is used against someone who holds a view you are in disagreement with, it will be called an inquisition.  Fire any CIA agent who asserts that Iraq has no WMD's?  That's inquisition like behavior.  However, fire the lead developer of the PS3 for being close minded about the console wars and letting the X-box 360 beat the PS3?  That's not inquisition like behavior.  He isn't being punished for his view that the PS3 is a better console then the X-box 360.  He is being punished for mismanaging the company.  The distinction in these two cases lies in the duty position rationales for each action.

The CIA agents acted contrary to the goals of their superiors.  Therefore the agents interfered with the rights position freedom of their superiors.  And the superiors had no rights position obligation to keep the agents employed, as their contract clearly laid out their freedom to do so.  However we would not leave the matter at that.  We would state that the CIA agents had a duty position excuse to submit the information their superiors didn't want.  The agents merely provided good intelligence.  It was the superiors responsibility to modify their goals to the intelligence, not attack the messenger.  In fact, because the CIA agents obeyed the expectations of the duty position, they had a rights position claim to continued employment.  Firing an agent for doing their job well is "attacking them" "suppressing them" or generally just harming them.  Therefore, because there was no duty position rationale for firing the agents, we say this example shares qualities with the inquisition.  In both cases, people are being attacked for reasons that we, the people of the western world today, consider unjust.  It should be noted that the CIA agents and inquisition are no alike in many ways, the harm of firing is much less then being tortured, the case is not clear cut.  But this case shows how we might consider something "inquistion like" because it violates the duty position expectations.

The board that fired the lead on the PS3 however, had a duty position excuse.  Again, the negative rights are the same, he has no claim to keep getting their money.  But his actions that hurt them gave them a duty position to cut him off.  For months he refused to accept criticism of the PS3 and asserted that the X-box 360 was an inferior device.  Because of his arrogance, emulation of the X-box's strengths did not happen under his leadership and the PS3 was an inferior product to what it could have been.  His bad decision cost the company a fortune.  So here, the board has a duty position rationale for firing the lead developer.  He was entitled to his views in private.  But after being entrusted with much money and prestige, he squandered it in the way he acted upon his views, hurting his companies product.  We view firing him for that reason to be "legitimate" because he is not being harmed for holding a view, he is being harmed for letting that view cause harm to others.

With Gitmo, I believe the terms of the argument are closer to the case of the PS3 developer then the CIA agents.  The Gitmo detainees rightly view that America does many evil actions.  And they rightly might wish to change that.  But, if they chose to use terrorism against America, then it is recognized that America has a duty position reason to detain them.  While many people, including myself, think that Gitmo detained many who were not terrorists and thus involved unlawful detention, people will generally recognize that America had a reason to detain these men, it was done with the intention of saving many civilian lives.  Therefore, Gitmo is not an inquisition because the people of today recognize a distinction that applies to this comparison.  We accept the duty position rationale for Gitmo, at least in theory.  We reject that there is a duty position rational in the Inquisition.  In fact we recognize a duty position rational to prevent inquisition like behavior.

So, when you say that Gitmo is an inquisition because it is a persecution of a group, you are implying that the duty position can play no parts in the meaning of words.  But this is clearly false.  People do recognize the concept of a duty position, even the most libertarian among us.  And the word inquisition is completely tied to duty rights, by invoking the word you clearly imply that there is a lack of duty rights.

I see no possible viewpoint of duty rights which could simultaneously label Gitmo as, in theory at least, having no duty rights rationale and still maintain any meaning at all.  If you insist on using the word inquisition in this way, you have deprived it of all meaning, therefore, you should not use it.

[Il Palazzo]

First of all, I did try to cut off the discussion from the morality argument, yet I've found it integral to what we were talking about.

Do read the following, as I've got a feeling that it's the source of our disagreement.

Look at the point 8. in my previous post.
It seems to me, that you're using the word 'inquisition' as a synonym of 'witch hunt' - a noun that is not attached to the historical event of the same name, but is purely the emotional residue left in common consciousness. In this case, it is used in the same fashion as the word 'nazi' is used to decsribe a radical nationalist with strong racist beliefs or, an evil egomaniac, not a member of German political party of the first half of twentieth century.
If this is the meaning of the word inquisition that you're using, then I should certainly agree that it's impossible to remove it's current-morality dictated perception, as there would be nothing else left.
However, when Torak (edit: sorry, Psyco Jelly, not Torak)used it for the first time(which I quoted later), I assumed - perhaps wrongly - that he meant the historical event, which prompted the quick analysis of my knowledge on this subject and, finding enough similarities, resulted in the comparision.
I'm sure you'd agree that any academic discussion of history should make do without applying moral code, least you're not interested in an objective truth.

I'd rather refrain from further argument, untill you will clarify the above.

However, I'd still like to ask you this short question: Do you really place morality above the law(as this is what I got from your way of defending Guantanamo)?

(also, I'd argue about the CIA example's validity in your argumentation, but we really should keep to the topic at hand, I suppose)

[mainiac]

I'd like to make clear that I don't think Gitmo was legitimate.  The theory behind Gitmo, imprisoning terrorists, was legitimate.  The practice was not, the prisoners included hundreds of innocent men.  Much of what was wrong with Gitmo was only possible because of the illegal nature it was conducted in, any sort of due process would have prevented most of the wrongdoing.  The guilty could have been held legitimately.

But the false imprisonment aspect, which is what is so repungent about Gitmo, does not apply to the inquisition.  We don't object that some catholics were wrongfully targeted by the inquisition.  We object that the inquisition happened at all.

If what you meant the compare the Gitmo detention to the Spanish Inquisition, I must confess that I did not expect it.  Because Gitmo is unlike the Spanish Inquisition in every way.  It was nowhere near the scale, it was for entirely different reasons and it's flaws were completely different.  I have trouble seeing what simularities there are at all.  Even the labeling aspect isn't relevent.  The Inquisition targeted many different groups, jews, muslims, heugonauts, apostates while Gitmo was aimed at one very specific group, those believed to be a threat against america.  It's a horrible comparison, as I pointed out quite a while ago.

[Il Palazzo]

I sort of feel that we're going in circles...

  The theory behind Gitmo, imprisoning terrorists, was legitimate.

so was the theory behind imprisonment of heretics. These people weren't just believing in their own religion, they were trying to undermine the ruling power's(church) authority=cause destabilisation, disrupt peace. It's the overzealous/politically charged follow up that makes it an illegitimate event in my eyes(unless you want to put on morality glasses, but please, don't)

We object that the inquisition happened at all.

In principle, it was the right thing to do, to maintain stability(which you can equate to personal safety of civilians), for the same reason it is the right thing to do for USA.

(Spanish Inq.)It was nowhere near the scale, it was for entirely different reasons and it's flaws were completely different

I don't think I meant S.I. in particular. Not to mention that it's hard today to judge it's real scale.
Still, while inq. and Gntnm are certainly not the same(as it had been said before), there is a very important similarity: it's the criminal overusage of authority gained due to right(legitimate) principle. It's the overstepping of laws while relying on general populace's desire for safety for acceptance.

while Gitmo was aimed at one very specific group, those believed to be a threat against america

...while jews, muslims, hussites etc. were considered a threat against the Church.

Look, I'm not denying your country the right to protect it's populace from harm, but for some reason, it decided to use methods that are not accepted even by it's own law system(hence Gntnm is not on USA's territory)

I hope I didn't quote your words too much out-of-context.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Speaking of Gitmo:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=216571&title=guantanamo-baywatch-the-final

That's it, reopen Alcatraz!  Conservatives will be happy because they want everyone in San Francisco to die horribly, Liberals will be happy because we're no longer compromising... our... values... er... Well the point is... Everyone wins!

[Jreengus]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=216571&title=guantanamo-baywatch-the-final

Was that meant to be funny?

[Psyco Jelly]

Did my little "Just be glad it's not the inquisition." statement do THIS? This argument is interesting, but neither side seems to giving the other any space. The entire point of an argument is for both sides to come to an agreement. When I used the word inquisition, I was referring to the aspect of people abusing the system set up to further personal goals. The butcher across the street outselling you? Tell the authorities that they are not Christian. He'll "disappear" soon enough.

Just be glad it isn't... Nevermind.

[mainiac]

I sort of feel that we're going in circles...

  The theory behind Gitmo, imprisoning terrorists, was legitimate.

so was the theory behind imprisonment of heretics.

Really. you think the Spanish Inquisition was legitimate?  Because I said only about a million times that I wasn't saying legitimate to the 15th century spaniards perspective but to our perspective.  I certainly don't think it was legitimate, so I guess you are saying you do.

I must admit I find this quite an amusing piece of irony.  This debate started over me objecting to you twisting words.  And now you are twisting the words in my argument.  The recursive looping has begun!

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=216571&title=guantanamo-baywatch-the-final

Was that meant to be funny?

Yes, and it was.

[Il Palazzo]

I must admit I find this quite an amusing piece of irony.

erm, I must admit that I've missed it.

Really. you think the Spanish Inquisition was legitimate?  Because I said only about a million times that I wasn't saying legitimate to the 15th century spaniards perspective but to our perspective.  I certainly don't think it was legitimate, so I guess you are saying you do.

I'm not using 15th cent. Spaniard's perspective.
Let me repeat myself:
"so (legitimate) was the theory behind imprisonment of heretics. These people weren't just believing in their own religion, they were trying to undermine the ruling power's(church) authority=cause destabilisation, disrupt peace."
So there you go. From any perspective, dealing with disruptive/dangerous elements is a legit thing to do for any country.
and:
"It's the overzealous/politically charged follow up that makes it illegitimate"
by this I mean the fact that it was enough to call somebody a 'heretic' to ignore the letter of law and detain/torture that person.
How is this untrue? With what part do you disagree?

I seriously think that your opinion is biased just like Samyotix wrote in his post.

There's basic mechanisms useful in deciding what to think of an idea, asuch as Occam's Razor, which too many people are utterly unaware of.
Humans are a lazy, weak, cowardly bunch, generally: Instead of using our brain to sort out who we should believe, instead of examining each piece of communication and looking for the author's motivation, instead of thinking logically and methodically, we tend to believe things simply because it feels good, because there is a consensus among people close to us, or simply because everyone believes it.

Skip that sentence about being lazy and not using your brain - it's the last thing I'd think of you.

However, should you maintain your view, we migh just as well finish this debate. I'll have to remember that I can get called a jackass when comparing somebody's country unfavorably. You'll have to remember that there are people who feel that they have every right to do so, and claim objectiveness.

[codezero]

You are both propounding illegitimate arguments for legitimate reasons.