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| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
Tell ya what, in my definition of terrorism, it is very broad to include a wide variety of acts and actors that I wish to attatch the same moral judgement on (states and none-state actors as they are both as bad as each other) I have no love for any state that commits attrocities, whether that be my country by birth, or some country I feel compelled to defend because of my religious upbringing, neither do I have any love for those who take the law into their own hands to kill people for their objectives. There is no difference for me and if in any future thread I wish to label someone or something terrorist then you may not point to this thread and tell me I am wrong because I have not agreed to YOUR definition. |
George, nobody cares about "your" definition, nor do they care about "my" definition. This thread is about "the" definition.
That's your problem, and evidently you even just admitted it. You create your label based on the people you want to label. But that IS the fallacy of equivocation, down to a tee. You didn't invent the word terrorism, you have no authoritative power on how it's defined or what it is, and when you try to argue against other people's assertions (when the other people are using the "normal" definition) by using your own definition, you are equivocating and squirreling the real issue.
Nobody supports you except for the other major equivocators, for whom the whole point of this thread was to knock some sense into. Well regardless of whether or not you or they "agree", your definition - and thus all arguments which ensue from it - are completely fallacious.
Since you obviously won't give up, I am reluctantly closing this thread before it turns into Georgey's ad hominem thread and another wave of IP argument (sorry Tito, it's not that your posts aren't welcomed, it's just that arguing over specific examples can only serve to weaken the thread itself). Again, thank you everyone who had something constructive to add to this thread - it's served its purpose and I have every intention of using it as a reference for future "terrorist" arguments that come up.
For anybody who walked in late and wants a summary, the main definition that people agreed on was that in order for an act to be classified as terrorism, it must be:
- Violent and unlawful;
- Against the collective will of a population, society, or government (i.e. not a single person or small group);
- Intended to coerce that entity; to bring about change in their will specifically by intimidation and/or the threat of more violence;
- Organized or systematic, as having some kind of pattern or regularity;
- Related to a set of specific demands or a specific ideology; not simply random violence;
- Specifically targetted on people who could not reasonably be expected to defend themselves, or their property.
The points of contention are:
- Whose law, if any, is applicable;
- Whether or not coercion is the true intent of a specific act;
- What the goal is, if coercion is taking place (i.e. is it political/ideological).
According to the majority of dictionaries, this is what is included and the definition and only what is included. There are no other criteria that must be present in order to fit the definition of terrorism, and there are no mitigating factors not mentioned in this definition that preclude an act from being terrorism.
It's been fun George, but enough is enough, you need to learn how to debate. Read the UK parliamentary rules I showed you earlier.
Concluding statement:
This IS a narrow definition, and that is the whole point. Terrorism is a very specific word with a specific meaning, and that is why so many moral strings are attached to it. Applying the word to situations that do not fit this definition are simply equivocal attempts to demonize someone or something by equating them to the same moral level as something else which we abhor.
However, any kind of "definition-based moral equating" of this type is intrinsically false, because unlike an objective definition, it varies from person to person. Definitions should never be based on personal morality, and if they are, then rational debate is futile.
Therefore, the definition above is the one I will be using, for all future arguments. Most people should have no problem with it. And George is right, I have no specific authority in this forum. However, at this point there have been no fallacies exposed in my logic (except for one counterexample given by Epicurus, which was graciously accepted and integrated into the greater logical framework). So I can legitimately say that this definition "stands up" to the test of logic, in spite of George's incessant whining and ad hominems.
Hopefully this will help in future threads if and when there are any disputes over the definition of the word. That, after all, was the point in the beginning.
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