Heh, yeah. Didn’t take too long for the political shifting of “terrorism” into “anything bad for America” to happen, did it?
What does that have to do with what we’re talking about?
Seems to me like the people who are opposed to the protection of full civil rights for all of our citizens are the greatest danger to our country – not foreign terrorists. When the ideals that our government is founded on become so thoroughly eroded with exceptions, there is not really much left to secure.
It’s like living in No Name City.
I get the feeling sometimes that many Republicans don’t much care for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – not really. Not in the clinches.
Vandalizing an abortion clinic ? That isn’t terror ?
It depends on whether there are people inside (or likely to be inside). Intent is everything.
And what do you mean by “vandalism?” Spray painting “BABY KILLERS” on the wall is not terrorism, fire bombing a clinic with people inside is terrorism.
So, firefighters aren’t people? The people killed in fires are not always “innocents” caught in the fire. The act of fighting a fire is a physically demanding, and dangerous action. Every act of arson puts firefighters at risk. Additionally, even the best firefighters can only be in one place at one time, it is not unheard of for a set fire to be occupying a firefighting department when a legitimate fire call comes in.
You seem bent on ignoring the fact that any act of arson has the potential to take life. Anyone using arson for political goals has either chowder where most of us keep brains, or is willing to kill un-related persons to make their point. Terrorism, in otherwords.
Anyone giving money to any group that advocates arson as a political tool is supporting a terrorist organization. Ergo, by their own financials, PeTA, as has been stated several times, supports terrorist organizations.
What part of this reasoning don’t you accept?
If you can prove that the intent of starting a fire was to deliberately injure emergency workers you might have a point but I think you’re twisting yourself into a pretzel to make it.
Zoe, you did see that according to this poll 24% of Democrats surveyed were supporting registration of Muslim Americans? And through most every part of the poll there was a similar break down of attitudes by political party? Don’t assume that any political party is innocent of being willing to trade someone else’s civil rights for a percieved improvement in security.
My arguments with DtC and Marley23 in this thread aside, I am disgusted with the findings of this poll. And while Repugs are more represented than Dems, you can’t tell me that it’s exactly an insignifigant number, there.
No, actually, I’m using standard legal thinking from every criminal court in this country: If one’s criminal actions cause the loss of a life as a direct result of said criminal action, it is murder. And the degree of murder is based, not on the circumstances of the actual death, but the circumstances of original crime. Ergo, if you deliberately plan to torch something, and someone, anyone, is killed because of that fire, it’s murder one.
But it’s not terrorism.
Well, you asserted that we need to make a distinction between not believing that a certain action is a curtailment of civil rights, and saying you are in favor of curtailing civil rights.
I was making the point that the distinction, in many cases, is meaningless. The fact that someone avoids the accusation of being in favor of curtailing civil rights through some cheap rationalization doesn’t mean that they’re not in favor of curtailing civil rights.
Is burning a cross on a black man’s lawn not terrorism?
Is painting a swastika on a synagogue door not terrorism ?
Odd, I thought you’d accepted that willingness to harm, let alone murder, or the willingness to murder, in support of political goals was terrorism. Especially the injury of persons unrelated to the political issue at hand.
Intent to harm or to threaten. Intent to cause mortal fear. Unintended consequences may be irresponsible, may show disregard, amy even be felony murder, but if they are unintended, it is not terrorism. Terrorism is all about intent.
This thread is like the semantic ballroom dancing championship or something.
I think you may be painting yourself into a corner. There are certainly “terroistic” type activities (hate crimes and the like) that may (momentarily) be bits of vandalism (swastikas, burning crosses, certain acts of vandalism on abortion clinics and the like) which do indeed make people fear for their lives.
I agree that the poll listed in your OP is shocking. and troubling.
Sammy Davis? Is that you?
I was all set to disagree with you, but I applied the negative - to answer “no” is to imply that you think that no mosques should be monitored. Which of course I think should be perfectly allowable if there is reasonable (reasonable, mind) suspicion. Bad question. However, given the 27% response to the first question, I’m drawing my own conclusions about the intent of those answering in the affirmative.
No.
No.
Both actions are disgusting and unconscionable, but they are NOT terrorism.
For fuck’s sake, what has happened to the use of this word since 9/11? Do not allow it to be hijacked to justify denial of rights to anyone other than genuine fucking terrorists (q.v. Cat Stevens).
Just to point out that the stereotype is even stupider than you might think, none of the people I know who wear turbans are even Muslims–they’re Sikhs. The Muslims I see going to prayer (and I live right across the street from a mosque), if they cover their heads at all, wear kufis (a little round cap).
The “cases” that are under consideration here are the ones in the survey, The example you gave is dissimilar from the questions in the survey. There was no question in the survey about randomly rounding up Muslims and throwing them in jail.
I don’t think you’re following the logic here. When you do a survey, you can’t substitute your own opinion about the “meaning” of the answers for the actual opinion of the person who answered the question. If you do, then the results will be biased. It doesn’t matter that you came up with one extreme example where you think it’s really cut & dried - especially when you just made the example up out of thin air and it has nothing to do with the actual questions we are discussing.
And I already explained this really well, so quit being fucking obtuse, o.k.?