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| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
okay, lets assume that you are right, terrorism is a single group fighting against something bigger and war is a nation/state fighting for something (bigger or smaller). To me this ones should be about equally bad, or perhaps even terrorism should be better. BUT in the media / by you 'terrorism' sounds sooo bad compared to everything else, yes they behave really bad and they kill innocent on purpose. But they are fighting for something as much as a state/nation using regular war methods. they (terrorists) just don't have the money/possibilities to do it in a fair way. |
You are entitled to that opinion, of course. The definitions are not designed to equate any moral or ethical standard to any of the words - they are merely, as stated, to define them.
Coercion is most likely the key aspect of terrorism that creates such a division between debaters in the moral sense. But I am not about to speculate on whether or not it is moral, only to define what it is. Whether I see it as moral/immoral is a subjective issue, but as you see, I am trying to avoid any subjectivity here.
| quote: | | so what i'm trying to say is that your definition of terrorism is wrong too, you see it as something plain evil without any purpose or reason. with your logic, you could use the word "state terrorism" to define a war that is not fair (due to human rights etc). |
On the contrary, terrorism by definition must have a purpose or reason. I don't recall mentioning anything about evil either. There's no emotional, political, or philosophical significance attached to those definitions, and it's irrelevant to this discussion what I consider to be ethical, and it is even irrelevant what specific instances I consider to be terrorism. Failing to recognize that would be a clear instance of an ad hominem tu quoque fallacy (i.e. "your argument is incorrect because it's not consistent with your actions").
| quote: | | for example all those fits into isreal as well, more or less: |
I'd be more than happy to discuss Israel in particular in one of the IP threads; in this case I am not going to respond because I am only trying to see if we can all agree on a definition. I'm not waving off your argument - so please keep that in mind before assuming I'm being stubborn or conceited - I'd just prefer to keep it out of this particular thread.
| quote: | | and i also just have to say that, a word is what you use it for not what the dictionary says... |
Debate is futile unless we can agree about what we're debating. 
| quote: | Originally posted by igottaknow
St Andrew makes a good point. I sometimes I get tired of listening to ppl bicker over the legal definition of a word. In the frontline Rwanda special last night they had clips of Whitehouse spokes women refusing to agree what was occurring in Rwanda was genocide because it didn't fit their narrow, legal interpretation of the word. It's like when Clinton argued the definition of sex. You pretty much can tell when someone doesn't have a leg to stand on, they fall back upon the technicalities of word definition. |
I respect your opinion and I agree that in most instances it's not productive to argue about the definition of a word. But when the alternative we're faced with is neverending relativism and equivocation, those words need to be clarified. Even the definitions I posted still leave plenty of room for interpretation or debate, and I can't even see how they specifically support my argument - the only reason I bothered with this thread was to get us all on the same page.
Consistent to my first post in this thread, I am not trying to exculpate or impeach anyone or anything based on a technicality - I see this as a typical issue in as those that come up in formal debate, where one or more words are ambiguous and simply need to be clarified before the debate can continue.
As I stated to St. Andrew, any kind of debate is futile unless both sides can agree upon what they're actually debating. Since such a significant part of the debate revolves around words like war, terrorism, etc., it's hard to make any headway when everybody is using their own version of those words. And while I recognize that it's not fun to watch people argue over the meaning of a word, my intention in creating this thread was to reduce future instances of that by getting everyone to agree to something, once and for all.
Make sense?
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I sincerely believe I've written this without any emotion or other personal opinion. I again welcome everybody to post valid objections to the definitions I concluded with, but I will say with clear conviction that I this thread serves a definite, objective and neutral purpose; and any comments on the usefulness (or lack thereof) of an objective definition or on the thread itself, while duly noted, are going to be immaterial to me unless you can come up with a better strategy.
Thank you everyone for the replies, I appreciate you all at least taking the time to read over this and think it through, even if you are not in full agreement. Perhaps, in this case, compromising on our definitions might be the lesser of two evils?
___________________
My party schedule:
2009-02-21 - DJ Attention @ I'm So Popular
2009-06-18 - DJ Annoying @ People Need To Know Where I'll Be
2012-11-32 - DJ Insufferable ɸ Or At Least the Stalkers I Complain About
2048-06-66 - Spastic & Whocares ¶ Although I'm Actually Flattered
9999-45-81 - Tweaker Gimp ☼ I Probably Won't Even Go To This But I Have To Make Sure I Fill Up All The Available Space Here
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(but maybe that's just wishful thinking?)
