If you, as a political statement, do something that a) might cause something to explode or crash into something else, or b) might kill somebody, YOU ARE A TERRORIST.
Could you modify this definition? If I accept it, then I'm never marching in a protest again, because anytime I walk on a street or a sidewalk I might cause something to crash into something else, or even kill somebody. I don't want that tiny tiny but ever-present risk to suddenly have much severer consequences if it happens while I'm walking to make a political statement.
Then I apologize for annoying you. It's misplaced anger on my part, since I myself had been annoyed today that a lot of news coverage of this has chosen to use the language "cut gas line", which while technically true conjures up a far more serious situation than "cut hose to a propane tank on a gas grill", which is what I thought the act actually consisted of.
But I was wrong; you prompted me to dig further, and this appears to have been an outdoor gas grill connected to a large tank supplying propane for the house, a much more serious situation and one completely worth the language the media's been using. (Well, a quick check at Fox News doesn't seem to show them using the more serious language, but go figure...)
I'm in particularly more worried about all of this shit, because now that I'm finally getting another job, it's in the actual government (and in one of the branches that is often a target for this pseudo-populist violence).
And I thought it was clear what the intent was -- entering a person's home and damaging property is a threat, no matter how dangerous it actually is -- and how that affects my definition.
we know what you mean, but there are in fact a hell of a lot of footnotes and caveats and clarifying definitions that various parts of your definition ought to have. i wasn't going to bring it up right now because it didn't seem relevant to the case at hand, but there are a lot of relevant nuances here.
define ‘as a political statement’ in a way that distinguishes from ‘for political purposes’ and ‘in order to establish norms of acceptable behavior for states’. it's entirely possible to explain such a distinction in a satisfying way, but you don't, and it's not exactly obvious what explanation you're going for. absent such a distinction, it's not clear why any military action undertaken to stop a government from doing something evil doesn't constitute killing people and breaking stuff as a political statement.
also, saying such behavior is expected or normal can in some cases be an expression of empirically true social-scientific fact, and i'm pretty sure that stating facts doesn't constitute terrorism (except in certain much more specialized cases). after all, it seems reasonablye enough to point out that some kinds of situations will lead to terrorism reliably enough that anybody who doesn't see it coming is an idiot (cf. the invasion of Iraq), and pointing out that this was a predictable result just seems like good social
a) might cause something to explode or crash into something else, or
b) might kill somebody,
YOU ARE A TERRORIST.
Could you modify this definition? If I accept it, then I'm never marching in a protest again, because anytime I walk on a street or a sidewalk I might cause something to crash into something else, or even kill somebody. I don't want that tiny tiny but ever-present risk to suddenly have much severer consequences if it happens while I'm walking to make a political statement.
Reply
I think you know perfectly well what I mean, and this isn't the sort of situation I'm in the mood to joke about.
Reply
It's misplaced anger on my part, since I myself had been annoyed today that a lot of news coverage of this has chosen to use the language "cut gas line", which while technically true conjures up a far more serious situation than "cut hose to a propane tank on a gas grill", which is what I thought the act actually consisted of.
But I was wrong; you prompted me to dig further, and this appears to have been an outdoor gas grill connected to a large tank supplying propane for the house, a much more serious situation and one completely worth the language the media's been using. (Well, a quick check at Fox News doesn't seem to show them using the more serious language, but go figure...)
Reply
And I thought it was clear what the intent was -- entering a person's home and damaging property is a threat, no matter how dangerous it actually is -- and how that affects my definition.
Reply
Reply
Nuances?
Breaking stuff or killing people (or taking actions you know have a good chance of doing either) as a political statement is terrorism.
Reply
also, saying such behavior is expected or normal can in some cases be an expression of empirically true social-scientific fact, and i'm pretty sure that stating facts doesn't constitute terrorism (except in certain much more specialized cases). after all, it seems reasonablye enough to point out that some kinds of situations will lead to terrorism reliably enough that anybody who doesn't see it coming is an idiot (cf. the invasion of Iraq), and pointing out that this was a predictable result just seems like good social
Reply
Leave a comment