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What is Terrorism.

MrWonka

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Terrorism is more than just people strapping bombs to their chest. Terrorism is about trying to bring about change despite knowing that you do not have the power to do so. Terrorism is about threatening to hurt innocent people who have done nothing wrong in the hope that other people who care about those innocents will agree to terms they otherwise wouldn't in an effort to save those innocence. Essentially a terrorist threatens to blow up(literally or figuratively) the whole works if they don't get the thing that they want. (money, political change)...

Democrats control the house, and Republicans control the Senate. Both bodies must mutually agree to any changes in spending for the next fiscal year. There is nothing that Republicans would be willing to give Democrats that would make it worthwhile for them to agree to support funding for a border wall. Even when the House was controlled by Republicans there was no bill that they could pass with Wall funding, and just a few weeks ago Republicans in the Senate agreed to support a bill to continue funding the government with no significant changes to spending over last year.

Republicans don't have the power to get the thing they want through regular political negotiations. As a result, they have decided to blow up the government. To hurt innocent government workers who have done nothing wrong. These are people who protect our airports and keep our national parks running. The Republican party is hoping that liberals and their bleeding hearts will feel bad for these workers, and agree to Republican terms in order to save them from the harm being caused by Republicans.

This is the definition of Terrorism. They may not be threatening to kill innocent people, but they are intentionally hurting innocent people in order to achieve political change that they otherwise would not be able to achieve through a natural legislative process or agreement.

Call Republicans what they are. They're Terrorists. As their type of right-wing Christian extremism begins to lose more and more power you can expect their tactics to become more extreme along with them.
 
:inandout:
 
Terrorism is more than just people strapping bombs to their chest. Terrorism is about trying to bring about change despite knowing that you do not have the power to do so. Terrorism is about threatening to hurt innocent people who have done nothing wrong in the hope that other people who care about those innocents will agree to terms they otherwise wouldn't in an effort to save those innocence. Essentially a terrorist threatens to blow up(literally or figuratively) the whole works if they don't get the thing that they want. (money, political change)...

Democrats control the house, and Republicans control the Senate. Both bodies must mutually agree to any changes in spending for the next fiscal year. There is nothing that Republicans would be willing to give Democrats that would make it worthwhile for them to agree to support funding for a border wall. Even when the House was controlled by Republicans there was no bill that they could pass with Wall funding, and just a few weeks ago Republicans in the Senate agreed to support a bill to continue funding the government with no significant changes to spending over last year.

Republicans don't have the power to get the thing they want through regular political negotiations. As a result, they have decided to blow up the government. To hurt innocent government workers who have done nothing wrong. These are people who protect our airports and keep our national parks running. The Republican party is hoping that liberals and their bleeding hearts will feel bad for these workers, and agree to Republican terms in order to save them from the harm being caused by Republicans.

This is the definition of Terrorism. They may not be threatening to kill innocent people, but they are intentionally hurting innocent people in order to achieve political change that they otherwise would not be able to achieve through a natural legislative process or agreement.

Call Republicans what they are. They're Terrorists. As their type of right-wing Christian extremism begins to lose more and more power you can expect their tactics to become more extreme along with them.

If I may draw a comparison, MrWonka, this is like broadening the definition of "rape" to include "anything that happens without my express consent in the physical, economic, cultural, social or political sphere that either directly affects me or might possibly directly affect me" just to be able to say "The Republicans are raping me every day!"

Terrorism is the doctrine of engaging in acts that are intended to directly cause death or bodily injury, or threatening to do so, in order to achieve a further political end. If you wish to tell someone who has had to flee for their lives from their country or has lost loved ones and friends to terrorism "Hey man, I feel you. I was furloughed for three weeks without pay. It was tough." that is certainly your prerogative. I shall not join in doing so.
 
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Terrorism is more than just people strapping bombs to their chest. Terrorism is about trying to bring about change despite knowing that you do not have the power to do so. Terrorism is about threatening to hurt innocent people who have done nothing wrong in the hope that other people who care about those innocents will agree to terms they otherwise wouldn't in an effort to save those innocence. Essentially a terrorist threatens to blow up(literally or figuratively) the whole works if they don't get the thing that they want. (money, political change)...

Democrats control the house, and Republicans control the Senate. Both bodies must mutually agree to any changes in spending for the next fiscal year. There is nothing that Republicans would be willing to give Democrats that would make it worthwhile for them to agree to support funding for a border wall. Even when the House was controlled by Republicans there was no bill that they could pass with Wall funding, and just a few weeks ago Republicans in the Senate agreed to support a bill to continue funding the government with no significant changes to spending over last year.

Republicans don't have the power to get the thing they want through regular political negotiations. As a result, they have decided to blow up the government. To hurt innocent government workers who have done nothing wrong. These are people who protect our airports and keep our national parks running. The Republican party is hoping that liberals and their bleeding hearts will feel bad for these workers, and agree to Republican terms in order to save them from the harm being caused by Republicans.

This is the definition of Terrorism. They may not be threatening to kill innocent people, but they are intentionally hurting innocent people in order to achieve political change that they otherwise would not be able to achieve through a natural legislative process or agreement.

Call Republicans what they are. They're Terrorists. As their type of right-wing Christian extremism begins to lose more and more power you can expect their tactics to become more extreme along with them.

They are terrorists in the way you are a terrorist to language.
 
So basically you are calling the republicans terrorists? And the republicans didn’t create Isis
 
Terrorism is more than just people strapping bombs to their chest. Terrorism is about trying to bring about change despite knowing that you do not have the power to do so. Terrorism is about threatening to hurt innocent people who have done nothing wrong in the hope that other people who care about those innocents will agree to terms they otherwise wouldn't in an effort to save those innocence. Essentially a terrorist threatens to blow up(literally or figuratively) the whole works if they don't get the thing that they want. (money, political change)...

Democrats control the house, and Republicans control the Senate. Both bodies must mutually agree to any changes in spending for the next fiscal year. There is nothing that Republicans would be willing to give Democrats that would make it worthwhile for them to agree to support funding for a border wall. Even when the House was controlled by Republicans there was no bill that they could pass with Wall funding, and just a few weeks ago Republicans in the Senate agreed to support a bill to continue funding the government with no significant changes to spending over last year.

Republicans don't have the power to get the thing they want through regular political negotiations. As a result, they have decided to blow up the government. To hurt innocent government workers who have done nothing wrong. These are people who protect our airports and keep our national parks running. The Republican party is hoping that liberals and their bleeding hearts will feel bad for these workers, and agree to Republican terms in order to save them from the harm being caused by Republicans.

This is the definition of Terrorism. They may not be threatening to kill innocent people, but they are intentionally hurting innocent people in order to achieve political change that they otherwise would not be able to achieve through a natural legislative process or agreement.

Call Republicans what they are. They're Terrorists. As their type of right-wing Christian extremism begins to lose more and more power you can expect their tactics to become more extreme along with them.

I have yet to find a definiton of terrorism which lacks (committing or threatening) violence as a necessary component.

https://www.rand.org/blog/2018/06/how-do-you-define-terrorism.html
 
I have yet to find a definiton of terrorism which lacks (committing or threatening) violence as a necessary component.

https://www.rand.org/blog/2018/06/how-do-you-define-terrorism.html

So forcing someone to work without pay against their will is what to you? Would you not classify forced labor as violent? Do you disagree that the federal workers who are being furloughed are being hurt? Essentially your only argument here is that what Republicans are doing should be classified as Financial Terrorism.
 
If I may draw a comparison, MrWonka, this is like broadening the definition of "rape" to include "anything that happens without my express consent in the physical, economic, cultural, social or political sphere that either directly affects me or might possibly directly affect me" just to be able to say "The Republicans are raping me every day!"

Terrorism is the doctrine of engaging in acts that are intended to directly cause death or bodily injury, or threatening to do so, in order to achieve a further political end. If you wish to tell someone who has had to flee for their lives from their country or has lost loved ones and friends to terrorism "Hey man, I feel you. I was furloughed for three weeks without pay. It was tough." that is certainly your prerogative. I shall not join in doing so.

Or like throwing around the term Nazi.
 
What is Terrorism.

Unless something's changed since last I sought an agreed-upon definition/explication of that term, it depends on what organization one asks. Hell, there's not even definitional accord among US government entities and law.

I note that because, frankly, unless you run a major terrorist or counter-terrorism organization, and I don't, yours and my definitions of "terrorism" just don't matter.
 
Terrorism is the doctrine of engaging in acts that are intended to directly cause death or bodily injury
Then why not call it murder?

The intention of Terrorism is to terrorize. It's to make people live in fear and to use the threat of harm to achieve political goals. If Muslims threatened to blow up the Statue of Liberty unless American Soldiers withdrew from Iraq would that be terrorism even if there were no American Citizens on Liberty Island at the time?

What matters here is that Republicans and Islamic Terrorists are threatening to hurt people to achieve political goals. They are hoping that liberals sympathy for those innocent people will be so hard to stomach that they'll give them what they want just to stop their suffering. Just like Terrorism if Democrats negotiate with Republicans who use these tactics they open up that possibility that allowing this type of tactic to work will motivate Republicans to try again down the road when they want something else.


If you wish to tell someone who has had to flee for their lives from their country or has lost loved ones and friends to terrorism "Hey man, I feel you. I was furloughed for three weeks without pay. It was tough." that is certainly your prerogative. I shall not join in doing so.
You're mistaking scope and severity with methods and motives. A bully threatening to rip the head off of a child's favorite teddy bear unless they give them their lunch money may not be as severe as someone threatening to kill a child unless their parents pay them a million dollar ransom, but they are both immoral acts. They are both attempts to intimidate someone into doing something that they don't want to do by threatening to harm something or someone they care about.

If we let Republicans succeed by using federal workers as pawns in this manner they will become emboldened down the road and try these same more and more.
 
Or like throwing around the term Nazi.

If someone's behavior and way of thinking are identical to that of Nazis then it is not flippant to compare them it is perfectly relevant. Republicans under Trump have behaved virtually identically to the way Nazis behaved in the lead up to WWII. They may scape goad Muslims and Mexicans rather than Jews, but the strategy is identical. Donald Trump followed the Adolf Hitler playbook on how to obtain power. That's not rhetoric or hyperbole that is the reality.

If you think Trump has to murder ten million innocent people before you can recognize the behavioral patterns and attitudes that align him with fascism then you are part of the problem. The goal is to prevent another holocaust before it happens and you can't do that by waiting until it's already underway.

Sources have already come forward saying that Trump has seriously asked about the use of Nuclear weapons and why he can't just whip out foreigners he deems enemies of the state. It was people like John Kelly and General Mattis that had to convince him that was a war crime. What few responsible adults existed in this administration have left. If you don't see how dangerous this administration has become then you are the delusional one.

This administration is eerily similar to that of Mussolini's and Adolf Hitler's. That's not an exaggeration. That's not rhetoric. That's the truth. Making those types of comparison's is not flippant it's deadly accurate.
 
If someone's behavior and way of thinking are identical to that of Nazis then it is not flippant to compare them it is perfectly relevant. Republicans under Trump have behaved virtually identically to the way Nazis behaved in the lead up to WWII. They may scape goad Muslims and Mexicans rather than Jews, but the strategy is identical. Donald Trump followed the Adolf Hitler playbook on how to obtain power. That's not rhetoric or hyperbole that is the reality.

If you think Trump has to murder ten million innocent people before you can recognize the behavioral patterns and attitudes that align him with fascism then you are part of the problem. The goal is to prevent another holocaust before it happens and you can't do that by waiting until it's already underway.

Sources have already come forward saying that Trump has seriously asked about the use of Nuclear weapons and why he can't just whip out foreigners he deems enemies of the state. It was people like John Kelly and General Mattis that had to convince him that was a war crime. What few responsible adults existed in this administration have left. If you don't see how dangerous this administration has become then you are the delusional one.

That's great.
 
They are terrorists in the way you are a terrorist to language.

Am I threatening to destroy language unless you give me what I want? What exactly am I asking for? Have I said that I would return language unharmed if you give me the thing I'm asking for?
 
So forcing someone to work without pay against their will is what to you? Would you not classify forced labor as violent? Do you disagree that the federal workers who are being furloughed are being hurt? Essentially your only argument here is that what Republicans are doing should be classified as Financial Terrorism.

These folks did not accept federal employment "against their will". I call that (bolded above) my normal financial situation. I work (as a self-employed handyman) without a regular paycheck consistently. I get paid only after I complete the job, submit a bill to the customer and then (hopefully) will get paid in the near future. It's not as if those federal employees working or furloughed will not be paid - their pay is being delayed until congress can get its act together and allow that to happen.
 
Yes, financial terrorists, but terrorists none the less.


Well, actually they kind of did.

How? You want to pass the blame onto the opposing party that you don’t agree with! If we create the group how come the greatest president put a stop to it? Was it because he didn’t want his legacy to be a warmonger? If I ask you who made 9/11 happen you would probably say W. Even though we had the guy that Bill Clinton should have put a stop too. Ok fine the republicans are responsible but who was the President when Syria happened? It’s in 2011. So this is pretty easy to answer
 
So forcing someone to work without pay against their will is what to you? Would you not classify forced labor as violent? Do you disagree that the federal workers who are being furloughed are being hurt? Essentially your only argument here is that what Republicans are doing should be classified as Financial Terrorism.

Aren't they going to be entitled to back pay? And if they have the option to quit and find another job, then are they really being 'forced?'
 
Am I threatening to destroy language unless you give me what I want? What exactly am I asking for? Have I said that I would return language unharmed if you give me the thing I'm asking for?

No, your post was not terrorism any more than is the politics you tried to attack. Twisting the meaning of words to make an argument never makes the argument.
 
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No, your post was not terrorism any more than is the politics you tried to attack. Twisting the meaning of words to make an argument never makes the argument.

You haven't actually identified the flaw in my analogy between what Republicans are doing and what Terrorists do. Tell me? Other than the physical nature of the harm being done being replaced with financial harm...what is actually the difference?
 
Aren't they going to be entitled to back pay?

Some are. Others are flat out not working at all, and will not be re-embursed.

And if they have the option to quit and find another job, then are they really being 'forced?'
By that logic, nobody can ever have their freedom taken from them because they can always just leave America right? Don't like your guns being taken away from you? Fine, just move to a country where they don't ban guns. I suppose you think that if MLK didn't like the way African Americans were being treated he could have just gone back to Africa?
 
How? You want to pass the blame onto the opposing party that you don’t agree with!
No, the blame falls on the party who is demanding political change. Democrats are happy to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government with essentially the same budget we had last year adjusted for inflation. It is Trump and Republicans demanding a change despite not having the votes to get what they want.

If we create the group how come the greatest president put a stop to it?
That's like starting a fire and then trying to claim it's the firefighter's fault for not being able to put it out.

If I ask you who made 9/11 happen you would probably say W.
Actually, if you're were going to find fault in a U.S. President for that it would probably be Reagan since he supplied most of the Taliban soldiers in the first place when they were fighting Russia. They then got angry after realizing they were used as pawns and turned against us.

Bush wasn't to blame for 9/11, he was to blame for turning our attention away from Afganistan and spreading our forces thin by starting an unnecessary war in Iraq.

fine the Republicans are responsible but who was the President when Syria happened?
Assad was president of Syria. The rebellion was started in Syria because the people were sick of dictatorships being handed down from father to son. President Obama didn't want to get involved with internal conflict in Syria with no good outcomes so he tried to simply prevent it from becoming a chemical war. Unfortunately when ISIS(created by Bush's war in Iraq) started making their way into Syria that the U.S. kind of had no choice, but to intervein.
 
By that logic, nobody can ever have their freedom taken from them because they can always just leave America right? Don't like your guns being taken away from you? Fine, just move to a country where they don't ban guns. I suppose you think that if MLK didn't like the way African Americans were being treated he could have just gone back to Africa?

The difference being that I have a right to own my guns, and African Americans have a right to be treated the same as whites under the law. In America, you have the unfettered right to seek out employment for as large a salary as you can find. You do not have the right to work wherever and whenever you want at the salary you want.
 
The difference being that I have a right to own my guns, and African Americans have a right to be treated the same as whites under the law. In America, you have the unfettered right to seek out employment for as large a salary as you can find. You do not have the right to work wherever and whenever you want at the salary you want.

Really? What's all this I've heard about Right to Work?

Expecting someone to just up and quit their job is roughly as ridiculous as expecting them to up and leave the country. Millions of people are living paycheck to paycheck, and they can't simply choose to quit their job in the hopes that another equivalent job is out there. People's lives depend on their paychecks, and losing a job unexpectedly is absolutely devastating to a family that depends on one. You talk about switching jobs like it's as easy as switching toothpaste. It's not, and you are insanely out of touch with average Americans if you think it is.
 
Terrorism is more than just people strapping bombs to their chest. Terrorism is about trying to bring about change despite knowing that you do not have the power to do so. Terrorism is about threatening to hurt innocent people who have done nothing wrong in the hope that other people who care about those innocents will agree to terms they otherwise wouldn't in an effort to save those innocence. Essentially a terrorist threatens to blow up(literally or figuratively) the whole works if they don't get the thing that they want. (money, political change)...

Democrats control the house, and Republicans control the Senate. Both bodies must mutually agree to any changes in spending for the next fiscal year. There is nothing that Republicans would be willing to give Democrats that would make it worthwhile for them to agree to support funding for a border wall. Even when the House was controlled by Republicans there was no bill that they could pass with Wall funding, and just a few weeks ago Republicans in the Senate agreed to support a bill to continue funding the government with no significant changes to spending over last year.

Republicans don't have the power to get the thing they want through regular political negotiations. As a result, they have decided to blow up the government. To hurt innocent government workers who have done nothing wrong. These are people who protect our airports and keep our national parks running. The Republican party is hoping that liberals and their bleeding hearts will feel bad for these workers, and agree to Republican terms in order to save them from the harm being caused by Republicans.

This is the definition of Terrorism. They may not be threatening to kill innocent people, but they are intentionally hurting innocent people in order to achieve political change that they otherwise would not be able to achieve through a natural legislative process or agreement.

Call Republicans what they are. They're Terrorists. As their type of right-wing Christian extremism begins to lose more and more power you can expect their tactics to become more extreme along with them.


Terrorism IS when an individual kills others in a political cause.




To be clear: I have used the analogy "taking hostages and issuing demands." I do not mean that literally, they are on the same footing as something like terrorists.

Well, I suppose that depends. Do they know whether anyone might forgo medication because they didn't get their paycheck? I initially wrote a post objecting strongly to use of "terrorist" in yours, but then I thought about the fundamental structure of what is going on. Does this threaten anyone's lives. And if they can still get care by going to a hospital (and bankrupting themselves), is that enough?

:thinking



I won't call them "terrorists", but there is not much positive that can be said. This, over a wall the GOP house didn't fund earlier.
 
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You haven't actually identified the flaw in my analogy between what Republicans are doing and what Terrorists do. Tell me? Other than the physical nature of the harm being done being replaced with financial harm...what is actually the difference?

You're right. I didn't read your opening post correctly. My apologies.
 
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