{"id":24721,"date":"2017-01-26T17:35:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T22:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=24721"},"modified":"2017-01-26T17:35:44","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T22:35:44","slug":"torturous-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/torturous-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Torturous times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I must admit, I have been listening to the news more in the last few weeks than I have for the last 8 years. Whatever one&#8217;s opinion of Donald Trump&#8217;s numerous and conspicuous character flaws, no-one can accuse him of being boring.<\/p>\n<p>Now he has again brought up the fact that he condones torture in some circumstances. Below, there is a characteristically apologetic admission by a British MP that he not only agrees that torture is permissible but he, himself, used to be a torturer.<\/p>\n<p>One of the arguments against torture is that it doesn&#8217;t work. Well, does it?<\/p>\n<p>I can personally attest that it <em>does<\/em>. In 2009 someone whom I had regarded as a friend deliberately lured me into an Anglican church where Fred Hiltz was to deliver an address. At the half-way point, I was ready to confess\u00a0<em>all\u00a0<\/em>my sins of commission and omission to make it stop. Mercifully, before the end I had passed out.<\/p>\n<p>I had secretly smuggled in a voice recorder; you can listen to Hiltz&#8217;s attempt to explain what he understands by the word &#8220;gospel&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/08\/canadian-primate-fred-hiltz-tells-us-what-he-thinks-the-gospel-is\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. No-one will blame you if you can&#8217;t listen to it all.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-northern-ireland-38758944\/embed\" width=\"400\" height=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I must admit, I have been listening to the news more in the last few weeks than I have for the last 8 years. Whatever one&#8217;s opinion of Donald Trump&#8217;s numerous and conspicuous character flaws, no-one can accuse him of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/torturous-times\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[1250,2427],"class_list":["post-24721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump","tag-primate-fred-hiltz","tag-torture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}