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Terrorism requires a political objective. This is some combination of theft, ransom, extortion, or sabotage, unless there's reason to think Dallas in particular

Terrorism requires a political objective. This is some combination of theft, ransom, extortion, or sabotage, unless there's reason to think Dallas in particular was targeted for political reasons.

bell-cot 3y ago
True. But the actual meaning of "terrorist" doesn't count for much these days. Like "heathen", "witch", "Jew", "Nazi", etc. in earlier eras, "terrorist" is mostly a "maximal pejorative" - used to label people who don't get "until proven guilty" legal rights, nor human rights, and who it is socially sanctioned for ~anyone to hate, torture, murder, etc.
- mr_00ff00 3y ago
  generally this is correct, but this kinda misses the point as to why terrorists are treated as they are. Not saying it is correct, but usually when they are overseas they are treated as enemy combatants (not to mention, if they aren’t US citizens then US rights don’t technically apply). You wouldn’t hold your fire in a battle because you need to have a judge determine whether an enemy army is guilty. That’s sort of the idea with foreign terrorist organizations.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    > ...hold your fire in a battle... Admitting that the modern Laws of War are too-often broken, or twisted far beyond their intent...but shooting at a uniformed enemy soldier, during an actual battle, while making reasonable efforts to avoid hitting civilians, Medics, etc. - that is a very narrow set of criteria. 99.999% of humanity is neither on nor near that battlefield, to plausibly be targeted, nor be victims of errors and shell fragments. Vs. "use live ammo" against ransomware crooks? That sounds like a recipe for yet more "a week after our missiles obliterated his house, we realized that the real ransomware crooks had been using his hacked old cablemodem as an extra relay" lethal screw-ups.
    - mr_00ff00 3y ago
      I wasn’t advocating for using this against ransomware hackers. Just that the idea that it’s not so black and white about terrorists and rights like innocent until proven guilty.
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Government institutions were targeted. Isn't that enough? Does the perpetrator's purpose have to be intuited to make it a heinous crime? It's hard to distinguish between this act and a 'legitimate' terrorist act. Same result for you and me.
- delecti 3y ago
  You're moving the goalpost to include severity or terribleness. It doesn't make it more or less heinous, but part of the definition of terrorism includes motive. It's just like how a world leader's jilted ex-lover killing them for personal reasons doesn't make it an assassination just because they're a world leader.

Terrorism requires a political objective. This is some combination of theft, ransom, extortion, or sabotage, unless there's reason to think Dallas in particular was targeted for political reasons.

bell-cot 3y ago

True. But the actual meaning of "terrorist" doesn't count for much these days. Like "heathen", "witch", "Jew", "Nazi", etc. in earlier eras, "terrorist" is mostly a "maximal pejorative" - used to label people who don't get "until proven guilty" legal rights, nor human rights, and who it is socially sanctioned for ~anyone to hate, torture, murder, etc.

mr_00ff00 3y ago
generally this is correct, but this kinda misses the point as to why terrorists are treated as they are. Not saying it is correct, but usually when they are overseas they are treated as enemy combatants (not to mention, if they aren’t US citizens then US rights don’t technically apply). You wouldn’t hold your fire in a battle because you need to have a judge determine whether an enemy army is guilty. That’s sort of the idea with foreign terrorist organizations.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  > ...hold your fire in a battle... Admitting that the modern Laws of War are too-often broken, or twisted far beyond their intent...but shooting at a uniformed enemy soldier, during an actual battle, while making reasonable efforts to avoid hitting civilians, Medics, etc. - that is a very narrow set of criteria. 99.999% of humanity is neither on nor near that battlefield, to plausibly be targeted, nor be victims of errors and shell fragments. Vs. "use live ammo" against ransomware crooks? That sounds like a recipe for yet more "a week after our missiles obliterated his house, we realized that the real ransomware crooks had been using his hacked old cablemodem as an extra relay" lethal screw-ups.
  - mr_00ff00 3y ago
    I wasn’t advocating for using this against ransomware hackers. Just that the idea that it’s not so black and white about terrorists and rights like innocent until proven guilty.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

Government institutions were targeted. Isn't that enough? Does the perpetrator's purpose have to be intuited to make it a heinous crime? It's hard to distinguish between this act and a 'legitimate' terrorist act. Same result for you and me.

delecti 3y ago
You're moving the goalpost to include severity or terribleness. It doesn't make it more or less heinous, but part of the definition of terrorism includes motive. It's just like how a world leader's jilted ex-lover killing them for personal reasons doesn't make it an assassination just because they're a world leader.