From the breaking (BBC) story on the Canadian Parliament Shooting:

On Tuesday a Muslim convert was killed by Quebec police after deliberately hitting two soldiers in his car, killing one and injuring another.

Weaver wrote:

epepke wrote:

Weaver wrote:Desired political outcome is the difference between this sort of thing and a serial rapist, who doesn't want any political changes in response to his actions.

Well, then, would Eldridge Cleaver be considered a terrorist by modern standards, then?

If oranges are fruit, and apples are fruit, does this mean apples are oranges by modern standards?
His serial raping was unrelated to his desires for political change, and he did not use violence to achieve political change.

Cleaver wrote that he raped white women for political reasons. So you dismiss what he wrote and declare him not to have been "politically" motivated.

Whereas, in this case, there doesn't seem to be much information about the motivations. They might conceivably be road-ragey drivers and nothing else. But they're terrorists.

Fascinating categorization.

epepke wrote:

Weaver wrote:

epepke wrote:

Weaver wrote:Desired political outcome is the difference between this sort of thing and a serial rapist, who doesn't want any political changes in response to his actions.

Well, then, would Eldridge Cleaver be considered a terrorist by modern standards, then?

If oranges are fruit, and apples are fruit, does this mean apples are oranges by modern standards?
His serial raping was unrelated to his desires for political change, and he did not use violence to achieve political change.

Cleaver wrote that he raped white women for political reasons. So you dismiss what he wrote and declare him not to have been "politically" motivated.

Whereas, in this case, there doesn't seem to be much information about the motivations. They might conceivably be road-ragey drivers and nothing else. But they're terrorists.

Fascinating categorization.

He later renounced claims that he raped for political reasons.

His claiming political purpose may have simply been a post-conviction rationalization and justification, with an eye to increasing his stature within the anti-establishment criminal community.

He certainly didn't do anything at the time of his rapes to tell his victims or make announcements of political intent - and that is another hallmark of terrorism, they don't do it secretly with hidden intent.

Cleaver was a common criminal who happened to have a minor gift for writing. He never accepted any blame for his acts, claiming the Vietnam war absolved him. He advocated armed insurrection and the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. He led an assault against a police station to break Huey out of jail in which two police officers were injured. He ended up in Algeria, where he gathered a group of criminal "revolutionaries" around him, many of whom hijacked airliners to get to Algeria. While there he ran an international car theft ring. He was a racist, a rapist, an attempted murderer, and a thief. Put a white supremacist in his place and tell me if you'd call him a terrorist.

Byron wrote:I've changed my mind about this one. Once, I was skeptical of the concept of making terrorism a crime, and thought it'd be better to charge terrorists with mundane offenses like murder and unauthorized use of explosives, both to stop attacks on civil rights, and to rob 'em of the glamor they seek.

Now, I agree there's something distinctive about crimes committed with the intention of inciting terror to effect political change, and doubt the perps, in hock to extremist dogma, will be deterred by anything but deadly force or, preferably, a pair of handcuffs.

Wouldn't treating them as normal criminals still result in deadly force or handcuffs?

laklak wrote:Cleaver was a common criminal who happened to have a minor gift for writing. He never accepted any blame for his acts, claiming the Vietnam war absolved him. He advocated armed insurrection and the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. He led an assault against a police station to break Huey out of jail in which two police officers were injured. He ended up in Algeria, where he gathered a group of criminal "revolutionaries" around him, many of whom hijacked airliners to get to Algeria. While there he ran an international car theft ring. He was a racist, a rapist, an attempted murderer, and a thief. Put a white supremacist in his place and tell me if you'd call him a terrorist.

What I'd call him is pretty irrelevant, because I don't go around calling people terrorists just because I don't like them. When I use the term it refers to a systematic effort by groups of people not acting under the control of a state to influence policy by inflicting terror on non-military targets in the hopes that the terror will influence them to put pressure to change policies.

I would not assume one Muslim guy who hit a soldier in a car was doing anything like this, unless I knew a lot more. Even if he hated soldiers and was pissed off at them. First, it's just one guy. Second, a soldier is technically a military target. Third, I have no idea why he did it. Fourth, killing a soldier is not likely to create a lot of terror, except for a few seconds before the soldier gets hit, and then he stops being terrified, being kind of dead.

I like my words, when I use them, to have some meaning, preferably something related to what I am talking about. I don't particularly like using them just to make people squirt adrenaline, unless of course they are special words like "fuck you, asshole" or "a pox on thee, squamous pustule."

I do note, however, that people use the word "terrorist" in incoherent and inconsistent ways. I have notices that when they try to justify the use, they come up with a lot of mismatched example, and if I poke at them, I can sometimes elicit some rather amusing self-important gibberish. This gives me some pleasure, increases my data about the interesting Cognitive Science problem of categorization, and tickles my irony bone about the name "RationalSkepticism."