patches70 wrote:Extralegal just means doing something outside the scope of law. If something is against the law and you do it, it is not "extralegal", it is just plain illegal.
Extralegal is like the bombing of US citizens on foreign soil using drone warfare. The legality of it hasn't really been taken up by the courts except by secret courts and that sure as shit doesn't count because no other courts can use the secret courts' decisions as precedent or make rulings based on the secret court rulings, thus the extralegality. The torturing of prisoners held by US forces on foreign territory was extralegal and still might be. I can't recall exactly, but I thought Congress passed a law about torturing at Black Sites but I dunno. The CIA tortures people in a prison in Saudi Arabia and they won't be charged with any US laws, because there are no laws dealing with that. Or have Saudi's torture prisoners for them, no US law can touch them, thus extralegal. Yada yada yada.
You can also use extralegal in an instance where someone does something and someone else says "Hey! You can't do that, the law doesn't say you can do that!" and the reply being "Well, the law doesn't say I can't do it either", thus extralegal.
New designer drugs come out all the time. They aren't included on the schedule of drugs list and thus can be "legally" sold. Not because they are legal but because they are extralegal, that the law hasn't caught up to decide on the issue.
Extralegal can also apply to vague laws. For instance, cruel or inhumane treatment of prisoners is generally illegal but rarely defined. Thus, you get the arguments such as "waterboarding isn't torture" until someone law is specifically written stating that waterboarding is torture. Until that happens it's extralegal. It's a gray area so to speak.
I think what Duk is saying is that he doesn't mind the extralegal torturing of certain individuals who carry out terrible crimes. Not for information I read but for the purposes of punishment. Simple executing them not being good enough, or so I take it from Duk's post.
For example, had the Nice killer been captured alive he'd have zero problem with the prisoner transferred to American custody, have him flown out to the middle of Iraq at a secret CIA black site and tortured to death. Have the dead body delivered back to France to have everyone spit on it or something.
If someone in France brings up the issue "Uhh, the death penalty is illegal not to mention torture is illegal under French law" the authorities can claim "sure, but we didn't torture him and we didn't execute him". Thus, extralegal.
Just to be clear, that's the second of the two definitions you posted, rather than the first. Dukasaur, in this case, would be arguing for such torture being brought within the scope of law, rather than established illegal tortures being made legal?
I kind of read his post the other way. That he wanted illegal tortures to become legalised punishments.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, though.
the world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it- Albert Einstein