Check out this interesting table about world views on torture over at the BBC.
Notice how the best scores are in Spain, France, and Italy (where more than 80% find the practice of human torture repugnant — what bleeding heart liberals! :)). I always knew that these countries had a better grasp of morality than Americans, but not by this degree.
Looking at those statistics for the US (where 38% think some degree of torture is permissible), it makes you think we’re not even a progressive country. Our percentage is lower than Turkey, the Ukraine… we’re only 1% off from Russia, for crying out loud! In Russia, they torture people “just in case” they do something bad!