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I'm sorry. I do not care about dictionaries. Words gain and lose meaning by connotation, not by dictionaries. Good working definitions increase our ability to s

I'm sorry. I do not care about dictionaries. Words gain and lose meaning by connotation, not by dictionaries. Good working definitions increase our ability to solve problems. Poor working definitions decrease them. In this case the proposed definition is a poor one. If this is terrorism, there are dozens of terrorists acts every day. Hate crime? Sure. Drunken armed fool on his way to jail and a couple of guys just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Absolutely. Terrorism. Screw that. The word doesn't describe what happened. The western world is not in a war to stop armed stupid drunken men. Perhaps that's a great idea, but even then it wouldn't be terrorism. My working definition of terrorism, which has served me well over the years, is "the use of stealth to deliberately target civilians in order to effect political change"

roninb 10y ago
By that definition, our own government is committing terroristic acts constantly. Hell, Facebook and Google are terrorists by that definition as well. I don't necessarily agree nor disagree with the particular event at hand being labeled as a terror attack, but I'd implore you to analyze your homebrew definition. What's added? What's left out? Why should the "mainstream" definition be changed? Is it not specific enough for the people you think we should target with that term? Is it too specifically targeting people you don't think we should care about?
barrkel 10y ago
You have it backwards with that war; it's the "war on terror" that is a conceptual absurdity, it does not serve to prop up your definition of terror. Stealth - what does this mean? The people committing the acts need to be creeping around beforehand? Or that they need to not announce what they're going to do before they do it (not the case for Northern Ireland terrorism, where warning phone calls were all part of the terror tactic - get everyone evacuated). Further, in Northern Irish terrorism, civilians weren't deliberately targeted; in fact, many plots were modified to reduce the risk of injury to civilian bystanders. Disruption to civilians, sure, but the targets were more usually economic or governmental than civilian per se. "Effecting political change with violence committed by non-state civilian actors" might be a working definition. And I think right-wing nutjobs killing specifically targeted ethnicities counts, just as much in the US as it did in 1930s Germany.
throwaway729 10y ago
> the use of stealth to deliberately target civilians in order to effect political change Literally the only differences between your definition and the ones provided above are: 1. They specifically mention illegal violence so that e.g. police forces aren't considered terrorist organizations. Fair distinction, IMO. 2. The part about stealth. (Because flying planes into buildings or blowing up cars is... stealthy?) 3. The part about civilians (the parent's definition is more accurate -- terrorist attacks usually but not always involve civilians). IMO yours is a worse definition. It means IED attacks in Iraq weren't terrorism. So confusingly, on the front lines of the global war on terrorism, few if any Americans died at the hands of terrorists. > Hate crime? Sure. Sure. Why the hell not? What makes a hate crime not terrorism? Terrorists attacks can be not hate crimes (e.g. if they target indiscriminately), but usually terrorist attacks are also hate crimes. > Drunken armed fool on his way to jail and a couple of guys just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Absolutely. How does this fit the "political change" aspect that's included in your parent's definitions? Wanting to not go to jail is only political in the most superficial of ways. > The western world is not in a war to stop armed stupid drunken men So who and what are we at war with, exactly? I've been trying to figure that out for close to two decades now. And the prevailing answer has changed at least three times while the name of the war hasn't. So maybe you're the one with a terrible working definition of "terror".
- DanielBMarkham 10y ago
  I think the "war on terror" is an idiotic phrase, so please don't ask me to defend it. The best I have is that some countries have decided to act against people who use terrorism. The reason why is that terrorism is a form of politics. You can either spend a lot of money and try to persuade a population to agree with your position or you can convince them to live in fear of your power and to do your will out of that fear. This, also, is why terrorism is such an existential threat. It's not because of the body count. It's because a very small number of terrorists can effectively hold hostage millions of voters. That breaks democratic forms of governance in bad ways. For what it's worth, I view the "war on terror" in much the same way as I view the "war on landmines", or the "war on poverty". "War" is so overloaded as to be meaningless. I think with terrorism you can at least offer a working definition and drive analysis further. With "war", it's such a mess that I think as a word it's useless now.
Mithaldu 10y ago
> there are dozens of terrorists acts every day Yes, that is correct. You recognized that well. Have a gold star.
mikeash 10y ago
This attack deliberately targeted civilians and was an attempt to effect political change. There was no stealth, but I really don't see why that would be part of the definition of terrorism. Plenty of terrorist acts involve just walking into a place and shooting it up.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  There probably was stealth, given that in Kansas anyone can carry concealed, it's likely the terrorist did that.
someguydave 10y ago
"Terrorist" means "Somebody who hijacks media panic about shocking violence against innocents to spread his ideological message."
bertomartin 10y ago
Agreed. Call it what it is. Your first thoughts are worth examining, a lot of times they're right.
brudgers 10y ago
I haven't reread Gulag Archipelago for many years, though the last time was after the rhetoric of terrorism had entered English language politics as a substitute for the red menace. One of the things that struck then me about the stories Solzhenitsyn tells is that terrorism winds up being a common charge under which people were sent to the Gulag under Stalin's regime. Terrorism is violence committed by one's political opponents when the political opponent has been classified as the other. The rhetoric of terrorism achieved its current form with the bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks in 1982. Previously, during Vietnam the attackers of a military target would have been described in military terms because the US interests were such that the Vietnamese could not be cast as 'the other.' In Lebanon the US interests were such that there was no contradiction in casting the attackers as 'the other' (existing political alignments indeed encouraged it).

roninb 10y ago

By that definition, our own government is committing terroristic acts constantly. Hell, Facebook and Google are terrorists by that definition as well. I don't necessarily agree nor disagree with the particular event at hand being labeled as a terror attack, but I'd implore you to analyze your homebrew definition. What's added? What's left out? Why should the "mainstream" definition be changed? Is it not specific enough for the people you think we should target with that term? Is it too specifically targeting people you don't think we should care about?

barrkel 10y ago

You have it backwards with that war; it's the "war on terror" that is a conceptual absurdity, it does not serve to prop up your definition of terror. Stealth - what does this mean? The people committing the acts need to be creeping around beforehand? Or that they need to not announce what they're going to do before they do it (not the case for Northern Ireland terrorism, where warning phone calls were all part of the terror tactic - get everyone evacuated). Further, in Northern Irish terrorism, civilians weren't deliberately targeted; in fact, many plots were modified to reduce the risk of injury to civilian bystanders. Disruption to civilians, sure, but the targets were more usually economic or governmental than civilian per se. "Effecting political change with violence committed by non-state civilian actors" might be a working definition. And I think right-wing nutjobs killing specifically targeted ethnicities counts, just as much in the US as it did in 1930s Germany.

throwaway729 10y ago

> the use of stealth to deliberately target civilians in order to effect political change Literally the only differences between your definition and the ones provided above are: 1. They specifically mention illegal violence so that e.g. police forces aren't considered terrorist organizations. Fair distinction, IMO. 2. The part about stealth. (Because flying planes into buildings or blowing up cars is... stealthy?) 3. The part about civilians (the parent's definition is more accurate -- terrorist attacks usually but not always involve civilians). IMO yours is a worse definition. It means IED attacks in Iraq weren't terrorism. So confusingly, on the front lines of the global war on terrorism, few if any Americans died at the hands of terrorists. > Hate crime? Sure. Sure. Why the hell not? What makes a hate crime not terrorism? Terrorists attacks can be not hate crimes (e.g. if they target indiscriminately), but usually terrorist attacks are also hate crimes. > Drunken armed fool on his way to jail and a couple of guys just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Absolutely. How does this fit the "political change" aspect that's included in your parent's definitions? Wanting to not go to jail is only political in the most superficial of ways. > The western world is not in a war to stop armed stupid drunken men So who and what are we at war with, exactly? I've been trying to figure that out for close to two decades now. And the prevailing answer has changed at least three times while the name of the war hasn't. So maybe you're the one with a terrible working definition of "terror".

DanielBMarkham 10y ago
I think the "war on terror" is an idiotic phrase, so please don't ask me to defend it. The best I have is that some countries have decided to act against people who use terrorism. The reason why is that terrorism is a form of politics. You can either spend a lot of money and try to persuade a population to agree with your position or you can convince them to live in fear of your power and to do your will out of that fear. This, also, is why terrorism is such an existential threat. It's not because of the body count. It's because a very small number of terrorists can effectively hold hostage millions of voters. That breaks democratic forms of governance in bad ways. For what it's worth, I view the "war on terror" in much the same way as I view the "war on landmines", or the "war on poverty". "War" is so overloaded as to be meaningless. I think with terrorism you can at least offer a working definition and drive analysis further. With "war", it's such a mess that I think as a word it's useless now.

Mithaldu 10y ago

> there are dozens of terrorists acts every day Yes, that is correct. You recognized that well. Have a gold star.

mikeash 10y ago

This attack deliberately targeted civilians and was an attempt to effect political change. There was no stealth, but I really don't see why that would be part of the definition of terrorism. Plenty of terrorist acts involve just walking into a place and shooting it up.

Mithaldu 10y ago
There probably was stealth, given that in Kansas anyone can carry concealed, it's likely the terrorist did that.

someguydave 10y ago

"Terrorist" means "Somebody who hijacks media panic about shocking violence against innocents to spread his ideological message."

bertomartin 10y ago

Agreed. Call it what it is. Your first thoughts are worth examining, a lot of times they're right.

brudgers 10y ago

I haven't reread Gulag Archipelago for many years, though the last time was after the rhetoric of terrorism had entered English language politics as a substitute for the red menace. One of the things that struck then me about the stories Solzhenitsyn tells is that terrorism winds up being a common charge under which people were sent to the Gulag under Stalin's regime. Terrorism is violence committed by one's political opponents when the political opponent has been classified as the other. The rhetoric of terrorism achieved its current form with the bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks in 1982. Previously, during Vietnam the attackers of a military target would have been described in military terms because the US interests were such that the Vietnamese could not be cast as 'the other.' In Lebanon the US interests were such that there was no contradiction in casting the attackers as 'the other' (existing political alignments indeed encouraged it).