I must disagree here. Starting a fire does put people in harms way. It is deliberately risking lives.
Is the point of terrorism to kill, or is the point of terrorism to cause people to live in fear of being killed?
Muggers risk (in fact, deliberately threaten) peoples lives. Drink drivers risk peoples lives. The word terrorism loses all meaning if it is to be applied willy-nilly to all life-threatening behaviour. There are existing terms, and existing criminal sanctions, for such behaviours.
The point of murder is to kill. Terrorism hopes to achieve something else as well, i.e., some political outcome. It’s the political angle that may change our response to the act, and it’s why it’s useful to distinguish terrorism from vandalism, sabotage, or just plain, everyday, murder. paperbackwriter made this point in the thread that was spawned by this one:
I would note that whilst the response by law enforcement should be different, the approach under Bush won’t necessarily be that way.
In regards to tree spiking, Earth First originally informed the loggers that trees were spiked… their idea was to protect the trees, not to hurt the loggers, and I don’t think there are many reported cases where that actually occurred. Horror stories about environmental terrorism is very small, random acts of violence stoked up by a whole lotta right wing spin and urban legend.
In regards to the OP, I wouldn’t take it too seriously as anti-Muslim sentiment. Many Americans, especially those God-fearing ones in the red staes, have little respect for civil rights of anyone except themselves.
Would the setting of bombs in Planned Parenthood clinics, set to go off when no one was supposed to be there, be terrorism or just vandalism?
It’s not being applied to “all life-threatening behavior.” It has the necessary motivation (a political consequence) and the threat of violence against the innocent. I understand the distinction that’s being made here, but this is not stretching the boundary so far as to include all acts of violence or all threats.
False dichotomy.
Spray painting slogans on the wall, or breaking a window, would be vandalism. What you describe would be, under the Texan criminal code for example, arson.
Not a false dichotomy. My response that you had quoted was in references to Dio’s insistance that arson wasn’t terrorism if the intent wasn’t to harm anyone. It was just be arson, regardless of any political aim that motivated it.
The distinction isn’t being properly made in some of the hypotheticals in this thread, that’s all.
If by “proper” you mean, “In the dictionary,” then no, there’s no requirement that the targets be noncombatants, nor is there any requirement that the terrorists intend body harm, or even that they hurt anyone physically (only that they threaten to).
"Any one who attempts to further his views by a system of coercive intimidation. In early use also applied spec. to members of one of the extreme revolutionary societies in Russia. The term now usually refers to a member of a clandestine or expatriate organization aiming to coerce an established government by acts of violence against it or its subjects. "
So terrorism is largely a matter of power. If the US kills innocent people to crush agovernment and bend people to the will, it is war. If someone else does it, it is terrorism.
The phrase seems to originate with the French Revolutionaries, and has since been generally applied to insurgents. However, the ruling party can practice terrorism, as has been proven in Iraq and South America.
The quote above comes from the Oxford English Dictionary, sorry I forgot to mention that.
We must agree to coomunicate in American English. Next time cite with Websters.
There is no single autoritative Webster. You do know that, right?
In any case, the def. at Webster.com is not substantially different, although they suggest that terrorism can only be done against the gov’t, where the OED suggests that governments using coercion to keep people in line are practicing terrorism.
That’s pretty damn significant when people accuse Bush of being a terrorist.
As does the
1913 Websters
Squink, I will suffer you your point.
Racism, ethinc bias and religious bias in America! All revealed in poll!
SHOCKING!!!
Actually, replace “America” in the above with “the world” and it is even less shocking.
Would you get the HELL off your fucking high horse? In case you didn’t notice, the study/poll found that the desire to restrict/curtail civil rights based on religious affiliation crossed all party lines. Yes, Repugs were more represented than Democrats, but with one in four Democrats (Okay, 24%) saying that making muslim Americans register their whereabouts is a good idea leaves me thinking this isn’t exactly an attitude you can put only on the Repugs.
Read the fucking study you twit!
Hence the word “especially” over “exclusively.” I stand by my post. The red states civil liberties less than blue states, and their notion of civil liberties is restricted to the right to infuse their government ans schools with Christian symbolism and the right to bear arms. The rest can fuck all. The height of my metaphorical horse has nothing do with it.
Does the absence of shock value make it any less worth noticing? Will the assault on our liberties go away if we simply refuse to acknowledge it? I don’t think so.