I’ve heard them refered to as terrorist threats. Depending on how you parse that, it could be read that way.
I suppose it could–but I seriously doubt it was intended that way. If it were intended that way, you’d expect for other phrasings of it to also be parsable as “this threat was a terrorist act.”
I just am not familiar with folks referring to threats of violence as being terrorism in everyday speech. They refer to them as threats of terrorism when appropriate, but not as terrorism.
Daniel
True enough, I was being facetious in my last post.
I don’t know that this is a useful meter for determining the meaning of the word, especially as the term has a specific legal meaning that, for most intents and purposes, should override whatever colloquial meaning the term has come to hold. I’ll admit that I don’t know if the legal meaning includes threats, but it most certainly does include property damage, as has been amply cited in this thread, which goes directly to the original point of the whole thread: property damage can indeed be considered terrorism in the eyes of the law.
In the eyes of the law, though, terrorism is not (as near as I know) treated like a hate crime, a +2 modifier to the DC of sentencing rolls (and I hope I remember correctly that you’ll understand this). It’s treated as a separate crime. Both of us are deviating from the legal definition.
I believe that there’s a political dimension to the legal definition. Our leaders have declared a war on terrorism, and they’re not fucking around. Well, okay, sometimes they are fucking around, but they shouldn’t be. They vociferously mock anyone who suggests that police action is the appropriate response to terrorism: military action, they say, is the appropriate response.
I do not think that the rhetoric we hear about the War on Terror ought to apply to criminals who vandalize SUVs. Their actions do warrant police action, despite what Weirddave would have you believe I believe.
It’s in the context of the War on Terror that I think it’s inadvisable to call such crimes terrorism. Call them political arson and try them for that. Add on some +2 modifier if appropriate; I won’t object to that. But calling it terrorism seems to flout the traditional use of the word and inappropriately tie them to mass killers.
Daniel
The United Nations seems to have troubles similar to mine in considering crimes against property but not against human life to be terrorism:
Note that this doesn’t constitute a definition; the UN has been unable to agree on one. From the bit I’ve read of the document and other UN documents, however, their focus is overwhelmingly on terrorism’s targeting of human life, not of its targeting of property.
Daniel
Heh. I almost called terrorism a template that could be applied to any regular crime in one of my earlier posts.
I don’t really have anything else to add at this point, but I do want to note that, as you mentioned the current “War on Terror,” that theses sorts of crimes have been identified as terrorism for a decade or more before the current political climate. While I’m certainly wary of the administrations attempts to hijack the term for purely partisan political purposes, I don’t think this particular permutation can reasonably be included in that push.
MILLER I think you are right about this permutation of the term being an older meme than the current round up. I wonder if in the past they were proscuted under the legal conditions described by** LHOD and WHOLEBEAN for property damage. Thanks
Listen you little tampon stain, I’m getting tired of you misrepresenting what I’ve said in this thread. Up thread you whine “Wah! You don’t play nice! You use nasty insults and stuff that makes me cry”, yet you continue to toss in little bon mots and strawmen in my direction, categorizing my positions in terms I never posted. I think you’re drawing perilously close to the misrepresenting what another poster has said line. Why don’t you go back and reread my very first post in this thread? Here, I’ll help you with the pertinent part:
Unlike Miller, I support the death penalty. (If you want to start a death penalty debate, I suggest you try GD, there’s never been one over there as far as I can find. :rolleyes:) I believe it is a fitting and proper sentence for terrorists, after they are tried in a court of law and found to be guilty of terrorist acts. I, the FBI, everyone in this thread except you and booklyn and anyone with half a functioning neuron in their head recognizes that ALF and ELF are terrorist groups. Therefore, I fully support sentencing them to death when the conditions above are met. Miller would probably agree with everything I’ve said here except he would likely advocate life in prison without parole because he doesn’t support the death penalty. That’s cool, we disagree on the DP. None of this has jack squat to do with pedophilia, stupid strawmen like “Well, according to you, stickling out your tongue at an industrialist be terrorism!” or implying that I said that ALF and ELF terrorists should not be subjected to arrest. In short, your entire argument in this thread is a collection of strawmen, off topic diversions and steaming piles of shit pulled from your ass. At least you’re doing us the service of bringing the ignorance to us to fight, I suppose it’s easier than having to go look for it.
Here’s an additional definition-not that it will necessarily chage anyone’s mind, but it’s worth a shot.
§2706 Terroristic threats
(a) Offense defined. - A person commits the crime of terroristic threats if the person communicates, either directly or indirectly, a threat to:
(1) commit any crime of violence with intent to terrorize another;
(2) cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly or facility of public transportation; or
(3) otherwise cause serious public inconvenience, or cause terror or serious public inconvenience with reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience.
(Title 18 of the Pennsylvania consolidated statutes)
You should note that intent is only present in one definition of the crime, therefore the grading of an offense to be less than that of terrorism because it lacked intent to cause harm to a person(s) is fallacious. The potential for harm is present, if to no parties other than emergency responders.
Now I don’t know about you, but I consider fire to be as safe and harmless as a handgun when possessed and handled lawfully, and as equally applicable as an instrument of violence, should that be the mindset of the actor.
Side note: Booklyn, if you say you’re going to do better with grammar, coding, and spelling, then follow through on the statement. Read threads in ATMB for clues on coding, buy a dictionary or compose your posts in a program which has spell check utility, but don’t claim you’ll do so while continuing to produce indecipherable posts.
Dear ** WEIRDAVE** I fully recognize the aforementioned groups as self proclaimed Terrorists. With your evident lack of reading skills I am not sure how to point this out to you.
Also Herr DANCESWITHCATS Fun make you of slysdexia mine!?
You might try a post, like you just did. Unfortunately, until this point, your tenuous grasp of grammar and coding has made your posts difficult to read at best. I hope you improve. So are you admitting that ALF and ELF are in fact terrorists? If so than Daniel stands alone here.
WEIRDDAVE-
My own words on your query:
From Post #31"My pit is much more about liguistic framing of activity and the overuse of “terrorism” to describe anything that is counter to the prevailing cultural frame. I still like Sabotage better to describe the actions described above, though terrorism seems just as applicable."
From Post #71 “these groups labled themselves terrorists. And I agree with their own lable”
From Post #114 "So, for the record, my complaint/pit- The use by the aforementioned groups of the term ‘ecoterrorist’ to discribe their activities ties them linguistically, therefor ideologically, to terror. The word “Sabotage” could applied at least to some of the actions here to for described; and would not tie these groups to terror as the M.O., but change through direct action with personal responsibilty. Not hiding, not terrorising. As I said in multiple posts- Do not support these groups or condone their actions, or violence as a positive tool for social change. "
OK?
aaaand scene. Took you longer to resort to this than I expected, but you’re true to yourself.
Daniel
Perhaps the reason why nobody is using the word “terrorist” in the manner that you would like in this discussion is indicative of your premise (that most people would define terrorism to be criminal acts that target human lives) being incorrect?
Let’s ask our random population another question: “do you think that firebombing a biomedical research facility to force a company out of business and make a political statement constitutes a terrorist act?”.
See post 165.
Daniel
Does the UN’s “definition” hold any water anywhere? Does it have any legal relevance in the US or the UK? Legally in the US, as post 169 showed, terrorism isn’t restricted to targetting humans. Nor, from the widespread labelling of the Manchester bombing as a terrorist incident, is that true in the UK.
Not to pick a fight with you, but a good deal of the discussion here has revovled around what consitutues a terrorist act; specifically, whether the destruction of property can constitute a terrorist act. I have positied a definition, which I have modified, and which now reads as follows:
(1) a physically harmful act against a person or group of people meant to influence policy or behavior
(2) the destruciton of property meant to influence policy or behavior that results in:
(a) physical harm to a person or group of people (e.g. firebombing the building and accidently killing the hobo in the basement); or,
(b) a credible threat of a physically harm to a person or group of people (e.g. firebombing a building, and although not hurting anyone, unleashing an uncontrolloable destructive force that poses a threat of harm to someone).
I modified my defintion to remove pure threats after considering LHOD’s comments. His OBL videtape fit my previous definition, but I’d have to agree that it’s not terrorism, it’s the threat of terrorism.
Now, all that being said, you’re “tried and convicted” qualifier really adds nothing until we’ve clarified what the criminal is being “tried and convicted” of – if it’s tire slashing (an unoccupied, non-moving car), I’d say that death seems to be a little severe, yet many in this thread (including me) have said that tire slashing could rise to the level of terrorism (if accompanied by a note for example, see 2(b) of my defintion and Miller’s example). I would truly like to know, since you’ve proposed death for those tried and convicted of terrorism, where the boundries on that lie for you-- could someone get the needle for tire slashing, graffitti, threatening emails?
booklyn, I admire your pluck, sincerely. Ok, so maybe your posts are hard to follow and you haven’t quite gotten a handle on the protocols of quoting in the little boxes and when you do try that you’re coding gets messed up, but you know, you shrug off the snide remarks and keep trying to contribute. I have been able to understand most of your posts and think you have some interesting thoughts, but as a word of advice, type your posts out in Word or WP or somesuch and read them a couple of times, get as many spelling errors as possible (somehow, you never get them all) and then cut and paste it into here.
HA!
Bingo.
So I’m sitting here last night, about to reply to you, when my brain goes “You know, if you throw in a little insult, Daniel will latch onto it like a drowning man with a life raft and use it as an excuse not to address the issues you raise.”
“Nah”, say I to my brain, “he’s been riding me all thread, lying about what I said and tossing his own insults about even though I’ve done none of that. I’m going to raise some cogent points in my reply, surely he’ll respond to them.”
“I doubt it”, countered my brain. “He doesn’t have a pot to piss in at this point, he’s going to be looking for a way out of the thread”
“But Daniel is a veteran of this message board. Surely he knows that running off and pouting isn’t going to gain him anything but scorn”
My brain replied smugly " You watch. I’ll bet you $5 that the little cunt rag doesn’t reply at all to the issues but instead gives out a big wailing cry because you’re now being “mean”."
Stupid brain, smarter than I am. grumble Now I owe it $5.
So, Danny boy, do you want to respond to any of the points I made in my last post, are are you just going to sulk and pout because I said you were a tampon stain? Inquiring minds want to know.
Why not? If it raises to the level of a determined, repeated attempt to intimidate and threaten an individual, than sure it’s terrorism, and should be punished accordingly. However, you seem to be trying to minimize the phrase “tried and convicted” through repetition, but it’s central to the plot here. There is a lot, I mean a whole fucking LOT, that goes on in the process of getting someone tried and convicted. That’s doubled or even tripled when it’s a death penalty case. Nobody is going to be tried for spray painting on the wall with the death penalty as the judgment. It’s not going to happen. Raising that as a specter of what is possible is the worst kind of straw man. It’s a mirage, a weak debating tactic employed when there are no more facts left. In short, we’re talking about the real world here, not some fantasy place where galloping Republicans chop the heads off of babies and roll squealing with glee in the blood that spurts from their severed necks.