SOS said:
Thank you for the compliment (I like you too ). I have answered your question, which was that definitions don't mean much to me. I am more interested in debating the effects and direction of definitions (the bigger picture).
I'm calmer now.

This is the thing. More than one person, including you, has stated that you do not believe that it is legitimate to refer to certain people as terrorists. This is what I have taken issue with and what I have been trying to discuss. If you don't want to discuss that then you shouldn't have said it and no you don't have to respond to any question I have asked but it is only polite and proper form in such a discussion that your replies to what I say are in regards to what I am saying.
I think that people who bomb and set fire to things as a form of political protest should be charged as terrorists (regardless of affiliation or ideology). If you don't agree then please explain why(and ofcourse you don't have to answer if you don't want to). If you think that only those who target persons should be considered terrorists then please explain why. Ect.
Unless you would like to explain to me the virtue in a court of hypocracy, bias, or preference the ideology of the criminal (and hence the usage of terms as propoganda against certain groups) is completely irrelevant to my questions.
consuming a lot of time and effort with nothing being accomplished.
The discussions on this political forum are really just a bunch of mental masturbation. All we accomplish here is enlightening one another about our perspectives, when people do not answer each others questions and do not respond to what each other are saying we're not even accomplishing that.
Skyhunter said:
Since these groups are not targeting people I do not believe they should be charged with terrorism. Whether or not it is legal to do so is not the point.
I've asked a couple times already but why is it necessary to target people in order for something to be considered terrorism? You and others have asserted it but I have not read an argument so far as to why that should be the case. I could take a que from you and respond "Well if they kill people then they are murderers. There's no need to call them terrorists. There's no need to call anyone terrorists. They're just murderers, arsonists, and bombers. We have laws that cover this already. Calling them terrorists is just a bunch of propaganda."
Would you advocate not calling anyone terrorists? Do you think that there would be a problem in this due to a lack of charging people appropriately for the nature of their crimes? Should we repeal all laws that adjust penalties and not charge people with being involved in gang activities, organized crime, or hate crimes either?
Skyhunter said:
The term ecoterrorist is not a legal term, it is a propaganda term meant to associate environmental activists with real terrorists that do target people. Like anti-abortionists who bomb clinics and shoot doctors. When it was just Rush Limbaugh and his 20 million ditto-heads it was bad enough. Now the FBI is has declared 'ecoterrorists the #1 domestic threat without providing any real evidence to support the contention. I believe this is another step by corporatists to stifle any opposition to their access to the worlds resources.
As I've already stated I don't care what politicians say. All I care about are what the crimes were that were commited by the perpetrators. If they bomb a building to make a political statement then I consider them terrorists. If they kill people in the process then they are murderers too.
As far as the FBI goes it seems that the particular individual who went before the Senate was basing his assertion off of numbers of incidents and the overall price tag for the damages done. There also does not seem to be a consensus even among the FBI on the matter. You're talking about one particular man and his campaign. If you take a look you'll see that Osama Bin Laden is still on the top ten along with an anti-abortion terrorist. I don't believe any tree hugging hippies are on there whether they are the kind that throw molotov cocktails or not. The FBI also considers rightwing terrorists and anti-abortion terrorists to be big threats. They have been giving these sorts of groups more and more attention as well. People blowing up abortion clinics, university labs, government facilities, ect all need to be investigated and brought to justice regardless of affiliation don't you think? If certain sorts of targets are being hit more frequently then the FBI should be paying more attention to those sorts of targets then don't you think?
Edward said:
But I can never agreee with applying the "terrorist" criminal sentence to a young person who has dented a freaking front loader.
And niether would I. I've already made this abundently clear. Why do you keep bringing it up?
Edward said:
A previous: up to one year, vandalism sentence is now: up to six years in prison. A twenty year sentence is now life imprisonment.
"Up to" being the operative words here I think. There is also such thing as parole. The man who murdered my uncle in cold blood was up for parole after less than ten years. I doubt there are any judges that will be putting an "eco-tagger"(

) away on "terrorist" charges let alone for a whole six year sentence and even if the person did do something bad enough to be subjected to such wrath they would likely be up for parole after a year or two.
Edward said:
But the majority of the eco people are not violent and they are a separate group entirely from the right wing extremists. People like Rudolph and McVeigh, have predominantly been the perpretators of violent true terrorist acts.
Eco protestors tend to commit acts of a vandalism nature. Many of them are young. Throwing them into the same bag with people like Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh, strictly at the behest of special interests, is an abomination of American justice.
I'm not talking about people who are non-violent, again this is something I thought I had made clear. I'm Talking About People Who Blow S*** UP and Set S*** ON FIRE! Get it now?

Now tell me please. What constitutes "true terrorism"? If in your opinion it means actual people are targeted then please refer back to the questions I posed Skyhunter?
Informal Logic said:
Then we agree you or I may not completely agree with anyone definition, and is that not the problem? The portion I quoted is my perception of terrorism, and it is not how I would describe envrionmentalists.
Why does your perception of terrorism only include incidents that create wide spread fear among the general populace as a whole and not include specified target groups? And why not include those incidents that are not so much for the purpose of spreading fear but of coercing a group to conform with the "terrorist's" aims/demands? Bombing abortion clinics is supposed to spread fear among, and more importantly coerce, a certain group of people. Would you not classify this as terrorism?
Also, just incase it is necessary, I will repeat myself. I am not referring to "environmentalists" but rather "People who blow s*** up" regardless of whether they are environmentalists, christians, anarchists, I don't care. I wouldn't call tree spiking "terrorism" unless it is done in such a way as to insure that it will do damage to machinery and possibly injure the workers. I wouldn't call "eco-tagging" terrorism either. Throwing a rock at a protest... not terrorism in my book.
Now I hope that we are all clear on the fact that when I refer to "eco-terrorists" I am meaning people who blow s*** up and set s*** on fire and the like and am not a dittohead and do not share their views that all "environmentalist wackos" are "terrorists" ok? Thanks.
