Is it just one is a government

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[–] 2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Your argument is morally and intellectually weak.

What is the difference between murdering civilians to "stoke resistance" and murdering civilians to "coerce civilians into complying with your demands out of fear"? In both cases you are using violence to influence behavior and the difference is you are childishly imagining "fear" isn't an emotion when bombs are dropping out of the sky randomly killing people.

How I know your thinking is soft-headed: you mention Trump's bombing of Venezuelan boats, but not Iranian cities.

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  • [+] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    We are literally talking about the difference between bombing someone from a plane and bombing them from your chest. This is exactly the place to talk about it.

    The dictionary definition is just a start. The question for the adults in the room is how that applies in reality and if there is a real difference between terrorism and, say, an air bombing campaign.

    By leaving the definition out there and ending the conversation, you are implicitly arguing that there is a substantive difference.

    The question for you is why are shy about engaging in a discussion.

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  • [+] 0 points 4 months ago* (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    "Government says that when it does terrorism, it's called something else, so it's not terrorism."

    I read this question as someone asking what is the SUBSTANTIVE difference between the two, because maybe they are struggling to see a difference between a president who LITERALLY THREATENS NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION UNLESS HIS POLITICAL DEMANDS ARE MET after bombing school children and a "terrrorist."

    "Terrorism" is one of the biggest emotional trigger words in the political language. If you want to discredit your enemy and remove their legal rights, you can call them a terrorist. If you want to terrorize people as a state actor, you have ample semantic and legal tools to pretend you are not committing terrorism, inlcuding text book definitions.

    Having an indifference to that is deeply unserious. You are doing nobody any favors.

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