Happy Torture Day
According to the BBC history widget on my sidebar, on this day in 1252 Pope Innocent IV issued the Papal bull, Ad extirpanda, which “explicitly authorized (and defined the appropriate circumstances for) the use of torture by the Inquisition for eliciting confessions from heretics.”
In one of the earliest known instances of “plausible deniability”, the members of Church did not, themselves, do the torturing, that was left to the local secular authorities who were reimbursed for their troubles by receiving part of the estates of the “accused”. The property could only be seized if the accused confessed, so nothing has really changed on the torture front.
Senator Lindsey “Grahamcracker” wondered why torture has been used for 500 years if it didn’t work. It is a good deal older than 500 years and it is still effective at eliciting false confessions for show trials which is why sadistic bastards and the governments they support have always used it.
2 comments
Sadly torture will be with us whaile evil scumbags want to get people to tell them what they want to hear.
jams O\’Donnell´s last blog post..Photo Hunt – Painted
Especially if what they want to hear generates a lot of money for friends and associates.