Debate Over.

From TNR:

Conservative radio shock jock Eric "Mancow" Muller (sample quote: "Obama can keep his "hope", the rest of us would like to keep our money, guns, and God!") decided to prove that waterboarding isn't torture by subjecting him self to it on the air. Of course, as my colleague Chris Orr has pointed out, getting waterboarded for a limited duration under circumstances you control is nothing like being waterboarded as a prisoner. Still, the experiment was interesting:

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."
With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said.

Here you will find video of the event. Its a must see.

Imagine being absolutely convinced of something one moment and six seconds later, after being given some new information, are absolutely convinced of the exact opposite. I would ask my friends who are still trying to defend those who tortured people in our name, what are you defending? We are America. We die for ideas. And the idea that any terrorist can cause us so much fear that we abandon those ideas is worse than any building he may destroy or any death he may cause. "Would I feel differently if it was my life or the life of someone I cared about on the line?" you ask? Yes. And thats why we don't make emotional choices when we decide what kind of nation we ought to be. We don't leave it up to victims to decide what should happen to those who violate them, because that wouldn't be justice. It would be understandable, but not defensible. Either we're a nation of laws or we aren't.

We were a torture state. We have to live with that. I urge you to consider where you fall on this issue and why...