This Just In: Americans Approve of Torture

According to a Yahoo! news article (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051113/ts_afp/usattackstorture_051113232322) "Americans at large don't seem to have a clear-cut position on the use of torture. The latest Newsweek opinion poll found that 58 percent of the public would support torture to thwart a terrorist attack. But the same survey showed that 51 percent of Americans believe it is rarely or never justified, while 44 percent said torture is often or sometimes justified to obtain important information."
So...I guess it cannot be taken for granted that a clear majority of Americans think torture is never justified. How willing are we to inflict pain for some supposed good? Just ask Millgram. It's interesting that with torture to prevent terrorism, you are inflicting pain on one individual to stop another individual from doing something. You're looking for a two-fer. It's not good enough that you got one bad guy off the street, but you want to leverage to get at others. The philosophical dilemna is that torture is one word while discomfort and pain is a continuum. There is no bright line separating "this is not torture" from "this is torture." "I know it when I see it" is not good enough. Torture, like every continuum, is a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? Torture limbo, anyone? How low will we go? Let's watch the poll numbers and our government and see.
Do these numbers change when the population is more anxious, less secure? Maybe the "Torture Quotient," henceforth defined as the proportion of a population willing to torture its enemies, may be inversely correlated with a nation's sense of well-being. But that's just theory; real torture actually hurts...bigtime.