Torture : What it is. . . . And. . . . What it is not.

Torture is excessive use of pain as an instrumental cause to coerce a man to act contrary to his appetite. The operable term is 'excessive', which is a variation of degree or a quality beyond a limit.

This is not an equivocal definition of the term 'torture', nor does the definition specifically separate itself from common use expressions which are an equivocation.

Torture is not knowable in the same manner as speeding in a car over the lawful limit is knowable. Nor is it knowable in the same manner as theft or adultery or similar are each knowable. Each of these is knowable with certitude because the rule for each is hard and fast. Where as torture is not knowable by a similar hard and fast rule.

Which is not in turn to say we don't have some idea of what torture is. Because if we could not have a universally understood idea of what torture is, I couldn't in turn signify it by the word torture and expect a reader to understand the sign in the same manner as I understand the sign.

Further, as with all else in nature there is a limit, and so while there is not a hard and fast rule, we can nevertheless with certitude still know torture when we see it when we see it at the extremes. For instance :

Do distributists realize how absurd they sound?

The following distributist video isn't only utopian or ideological. It's also plain old fashioned lunacy:

From the youtube video Are You a Distributist :

Distributism is the economic arrangement in which the means of production or capital and land are owned by individuals in the market much like capitalism.

However, there are restrictions in the market which disallow the ownership of the means of production that another person labors at.

This results in a highly distributed economy.

Something important to note that the word 'Distributism' is not talking about an action. It refers to the state of the land and capital in the market whether it is well distributed or it is concentrated.

Get it? It's 'disallowed, ("by the market"), to hire someone as an employee.

Such as the wine grower did in the parable of the vineyard where he hired workers by the hour.

So not only would a winegrower be disallowed from hiring labor by the hour