# Am I wrong to view Guy Fawkes as a hero? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 25, 2008, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473 "2008-10-25T03:33:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473/41 "2008-10-27T21:05:39Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Yeah, I was kinda wondering how Catholics, especially in primarily-Catholic areas, dealt with it. Appropriating the holiday makes a lot of sense. I was quite shocked when she told me her version of events. Whatever happened to history being written by the winners!!! ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473/42 "2008-10-27T21:17:39Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Even the WTC attacks could be seen as acts of war, attempting to destroy the financial system by attacking it directly. On the other hand, there is no “higher” purpose to blowing up a pub or falafel stand than to simply make the populace afraid to live their normal lives. Why is why the 9/11 attacks were in a way disturbingly different. Usually, terrorism is a sort of violent street theater, a temper tantrum carried out with guns and bombs. But Bin Laden’s goal wasn’t to “make a statement”- he was trying as hard as he and his followers could to weaken and cripple the United States. He scared the shit out the experts who assessed just what 100 suicidal saboteurs could do if they were smart enough to pick the right targets. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473/43 "2008-10-27T21:47:56Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Why is why the 9/11 attacks were in a way disturbingly different. Usually, terrorism is a sort of violent street theater, a temper tantrum carried out with guns and bombs. But Bin Laden’s goal wasn’t to “make a statement”- he was trying as hard as he and his followers could to weaken and cripple the United States. He scared the shit out the experts who assessed just what 100 suicidal saboteurs could do if they were smart enough to pick the right targets. So what are you saying? It wasn’t a ‘terrorist’ attack because it didn’t involve a teenager with a rucksack? Why wasn’t he trying to make a statement - he was never going to bring down the US government and western civilisation as a result, but he was certainly shouting with the biggest megaphone. I’d say it was the biggest terrorist attack in history - and the perpetrators got exactly what they wanted from it. More shame GW (but that’s another thread) ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473/44 "2008-10-27T22:15:26Z")
The 9/11 attackers couldn’t reasonably have claimed to be acting in self-defense, even in attacking a military target like the Pentagon. In as much as the U.S. was targeting bin Laden and his ilk, it was only in response to their prior terrorist attacks against American targets. And the Pentagon attack didn’t really do anything to hamper those efforts anyway. Nor could they claim to be acting as revolutionaries, since the U.S. wasn’t in control of their homeland. I think those distinctions have more to do with the modern definition of “terrorism” than simply whether it’s a military or civilian target. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473/45 "2008-10-27T22:19:27Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > So what are you saying? It wasn’t a ‘terrorist’ attack because it didn’t involve a teenager with a rucksack? Yes, and that is why those experts were so surprised. Scale must be included in the calculation. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2008, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473/46 "2008-10-28T00:04:24Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Did anyone else catch the re-enactment on TV. Sadly, I can’t remember the name or channel or when it originally aired, but it looked like a British program. … Had to be this [_The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding The Legend_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=4535769), made to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the plot. CMC +fnord! Obligatory link to [The Gunpowder Plot Society](http://www.gunpowder-plot.org/index.asp), for those folks who’s only exposure to Guy Fawkes is _V_. ---
**Author:** ![Carson\_O\_Genic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cdc98d/32.png) [@Carson\_O\_Genic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carson_O_Genic)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2008, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473/47 "2008-10-28T11:07:04Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Erm, I think you’re getting confused about who gets to celebrate the event - it’s an English/Protestant festival because the ‘evil Catholic’ plot was foiled. It’s the only public holiday that has been celebrated consistently in England for over 400 years (seeing as Cromwell at one point cancelled Christmas), so if you celebrated it in the RSA, it would’ve been promoted by your BRITISH overlords, not the Boers. > _Remember Remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot._ ``` Of course I could be confused from a dogmatically sceptical schoolboy's perspective. Recognise though that the NGK ( Dutch Reformed derivative) was the church of prevalence, and of the prevailing government POST British overlords. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2008, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473/48 "2008-10-28T13:41:31Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > So what are you saying? It wasn’t a ‘terrorist’ attack because it didn’t involve a teenager with a rucksack? Why wasn’t he trying to make a statement - he was never going to bring down the US government and western civilisation as a result, but he was certainly shouting with the biggest megaphone. I’d say it was the biggest terrorist attack in history - and the perpetrators got exactly what they wanted from it. More shame GW (but that’s another thread) Well that gets into the question of where you draw the line between terrorism and sabotage operations in a war. Since Al-Qaeda isn’t a government of a country, they’re considered terrorists by almost everyone and I have no quabble with that. My point was that if you simply want your enemy to be dead, you don’t care whether they respect or fear you. Nineteen times out of twenty terrorism is about intimidation, and as far as I know Bin Laden wasn’t trying to blackmail anything out of the US, he simply declared to-the-death war. To draw an analogy back to the OP, Guy Fawkes and Co. weren’t trying to “make” the Protestant government “do” anything; they wanted it to cease to exist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-wrong-to-view-guy-fawkes-as-a-hero/469473.md?page=2)