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>(all) european governments are terrorist organisations I'm all for criticizing government actions, trust me, but can we try to make thoughtful criticisms that

>(all) european governments are terrorist organisations I'm all for criticizing government actions, trust me, but can we try to make thoughtful criticisms that represent reality? Or, at the very least, if you're going to use terms as heavy as "terrorist organization", can you provide some more rationale? Like, how do you arrive at equating all EU governments to terrorists?

GordonS 1y ago
[flagged]
- gruez 1y ago
  >When the EU literally supports terrorism, ??? Is just an inflammatory way to reference some culture war issue like "EU condemns Israel" or whatever?
  - GordonS 1y ago
    Apartheid, genocide and war crimes are not "culture war" issues.
    - reliabilityguy 1y ago
      So, basically anyone who pays taxes in the EU supports terrorism now?
      - KetoManx64 1y ago
        If the mafia comes to your door and tells you that you need to pay them 50% of your income or they will come to your house and drag you to prison at gunpoint and shoot you if you resist, are you technically supporting the mafia's crimes when you pay them?
        reliabilityguy 1y ago
        No one kills people for not paying taxes. Your example is dramatic and detached from reality. Original claim was based on stretching reality to the point of absurd, which I showed with my question.
        redeeman 1y ago
        no, you just get hauled away to prison, all your belongings stolen, your kids taken away, etc. but hey, they wont shoot you!
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        > No one kills people for not paying taxes. Your example is dramatic and detached from reality. What do you think actually happens in the US if you refuse to pay taxes to such an extent that they come to arrest you for it, and then when they do you put up a fight? See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege
        reliabilityguy 1y ago
        What a way to make Waco siege to fit your narrative.
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        It's what happened there though?
    - gruez 1y ago
      >Apartheid, genocide and war crimes are not "culture war" issues. "Culture war" doesn't literally mean culture stuff like religion. It basically covers any controversial issue over ideology. From wikipedia: >A culture war is a form of cultural conflict (metaphorical "war") between different social groups who struggle to politically impose their own ideology (moral beliefs, humane virtues, and religious practices) upon mainstream society,[1][2] or upon the other. In political usage, culture war is a metaphor for "hot-button" politics about values and ideologies, realized with intentionally adversarial social narratives meant to provoke political polarization among the mainstream of society over economic matters,[3][4] such as those of public policy,[5] as well as of consumption.[1] As practical politics, a culture war is about social policy wedge issues that are based on abstract arguments about values, morality, and lifestyle meant to provoke political cleavage in a multicultural society.[2] Of course, everyone thinks their issue is a Super Serious Issue that isn't culture war, and their side is so obviously correct that the idea controversy exists at all is absurd, so you really can't take someone's word that it's not a culture war issue. The Wikipedia article agrees with this. It lists such serious issues as trans rights, education policy, and obamacare. I'm sure if you asked strong supporters/opponents for those issues, they'd scoff at the characterization of "culture war".
    - exe34 1y ago
      Your mistake is to assume you have won the social media campaign to legitimize those claims.
rdm_blackhole 1y ago
Maybe not all but most of them probably. May I interest you in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by the French goverment? It was codenamed: Opération Satanique, and was an act of French state terrorism. Probably the ones we do not know about are worse.
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  Probably everybody who was involved in that operation is now retired or dead. That bit of history is now at least middle-aged (I'd say verging on old, but I've recently been informed on HN that what I consider old is middle aged otherwise my fellow olds get sad), we're two generations away, so if we do accept it as proving your point - for how much longer would you accept it as relevant?
immibis 1y ago
All of them are supporting the terrorist attack on Gaza, aren't they? I think any organization that regularly sponsors terrorist attacks is a terrorist organization - that seems like a reasonable definition to me.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  > All of them are supporting the terrorist attack on Gaza, aren't they? It's a genocide, not a terrorist attack. Yes their complicity towards Israel's action is criminal, but: - that doesn't make them terrorists - what does it even has to do with the conversation?!
  - reliabilityguy 1y ago
    > It's a genocide, not a terrorist attack. It’s neither. There is a word for it in a dictionary: war.
    - immibis 1y ago
      An operation by a state to purge itself of an ethnic group? If that's a war, perhaps it's a civil war? But a civil war implies both sides having a similar ability level. And a war in the year 2025 normally implies mainly hitting military targets - the enemy's civilians are to be subjugated, not killed.
      - reliabilityguy 1y ago
        > An operation by a state to purge itself of an ethnic group? Palestinians do not live in Israel. So, Israel is not purging “itself”. If you claim that Israel wants to remove all the Arabs, then why it does not wage war on its own Arab citizens? > But a civil war implies both sides having a similar ability level. What? It makes no sense. In Lebanese civil war you had at least 4 sides, and they were vastly different in their abilities. Civil war implies that everyone involved is a citizen, which is not the case here. > And a war in the year 2025 normally implies mainly hitting military targets - the enemy's civilians are to be subjugated, not killed. In any war civilians die, especially if the war involves guerrillas. Look at Myanmar: civil war, guerrilla groups, a lot of dead civilians.
redeeman 1y ago
because they explicitly aim to terrorize people, telling them that if they do not agree to give >50% of their life to the state, they will be imprisoned and removed from their family. Laws are upheld only for the peasant population while certain classes remain completely outside of the same rules. It is an illegitimate regime that cannot reasonably be thought of in any other way. They rationalize their existence in the same way as the Mafias have done. "hey, pay protection money or we whack you", "hey, you get services for that money" (trash pickup). Not only that, it endaevors to EXPLICITLY be unfair to people in the application of theft, HEAVILY applying its own extreme bias as to what a good citizen is, in direct opposition to promoting freedom and happyness

GordonS 1y ago

[flagged]

gruez 1y ago
>When the EU literally supports terrorism, ??? Is just an inflammatory way to reference some culture war issue like "EU condemns Israel" or whatever?
- GordonS 1y ago
  Apartheid, genocide and war crimes are not "culture war" issues.
  - reliabilityguy 1y ago
    So, basically anyone who pays taxes in the EU supports terrorism now?
    - KetoManx64 1y ago
      If the mafia comes to your door and tells you that you need to pay them 50% of your income or they will come to your house and drag you to prison at gunpoint and shoot you if you resist, are you technically supporting the mafia's crimes when you pay them?
      - reliabilityguy 1y ago
        No one kills people for not paying taxes. Your example is dramatic and detached from reality. Original claim was based on stretching reality to the point of absurd, which I showed with my question.
        redeeman 1y ago
        no, you just get hauled away to prison, all your belongings stolen, your kids taken away, etc. but hey, they wont shoot you!
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        > No one kills people for not paying taxes. Your example is dramatic and detached from reality. What do you think actually happens in the US if you refuse to pay taxes to such an extent that they come to arrest you for it, and then when they do you put up a fight? See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege
        reliabilityguy 1y ago
        What a way to make Waco siege to fit your narrative.
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        It's what happened there though?
  - gruez 1y ago
    >Apartheid, genocide and war crimes are not "culture war" issues. "Culture war" doesn't literally mean culture stuff like religion. It basically covers any controversial issue over ideology. From wikipedia: >A culture war is a form of cultural conflict (metaphorical "war") between different social groups who struggle to politically impose their own ideology (moral beliefs, humane virtues, and religious practices) upon mainstream society,[1][2] or upon the other. In political usage, culture war is a metaphor for "hot-button" politics about values and ideologies, realized with intentionally adversarial social narratives meant to provoke political polarization among the mainstream of society over economic matters,[3][4] such as those of public policy,[5] as well as of consumption.[1] As practical politics, a culture war is about social policy wedge issues that are based on abstract arguments about values, morality, and lifestyle meant to provoke political cleavage in a multicultural society.[2] Of course, everyone thinks their issue is a Super Serious Issue that isn't culture war, and their side is so obviously correct that the idea controversy exists at all is absurd, so you really can't take someone's word that it's not a culture war issue. The Wikipedia article agrees with this. It lists such serious issues as trans rights, education policy, and obamacare. I'm sure if you asked strong supporters/opponents for those issues, they'd scoff at the characterization of "culture war".
  - exe34 1y ago
    Your mistake is to assume you have won the social media campaign to legitimize those claims.

rdm_blackhole 1y ago

Maybe not all but most of them probably. May I interest you in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by the French goverment? It was codenamed: Opération Satanique, and was an act of French state terrorism. Probably the ones we do not know about are worse.

bryanrasmussen 1y ago
Probably everybody who was involved in that operation is now retired or dead. That bit of history is now at least middle-aged (I'd say verging on old, but I've recently been informed on HN that what I consider old is middle aged otherwise my fellow olds get sad), we're two generations away, so if we do accept it as proving your point - for how much longer would you accept it as relevant?

immibis 1y ago

All of them are supporting the terrorist attack on Gaza, aren't they? I think any organization that regularly sponsors terrorist attacks is a terrorist organization - that seems like a reasonable definition to me.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
littlestymaar 1y ago
> All of them are supporting the terrorist attack on Gaza, aren't they? It's a genocide, not a terrorist attack. Yes their complicity towards Israel's action is criminal, but: - that doesn't make them terrorists - what does it even has to do with the conversation?!
- reliabilityguy 1y ago
  > It's a genocide, not a terrorist attack. It’s neither. There is a word for it in a dictionary: war.
  - immibis 1y ago
    An operation by a state to purge itself of an ethnic group? If that's a war, perhaps it's a civil war? But a civil war implies both sides having a similar ability level. And a war in the year 2025 normally implies mainly hitting military targets - the enemy's civilians are to be subjugated, not killed.
    - reliabilityguy 1y ago
      > An operation by a state to purge itself of an ethnic group? Palestinians do not live in Israel. So, Israel is not purging “itself”. If you claim that Israel wants to remove all the Arabs, then why it does not wage war on its own Arab citizens? > But a civil war implies both sides having a similar ability level. What? It makes no sense. In Lebanese civil war you had at least 4 sides, and they were vastly different in their abilities. Civil war implies that everyone involved is a citizen, which is not the case here. > And a war in the year 2025 normally implies mainly hitting military targets - the enemy's civilians are to be subjugated, not killed. In any war civilians die, especially if the war involves guerrillas. Look at Myanmar: civil war, guerrilla groups, a lot of dead civilians.

redeeman 1y ago

because they explicitly aim to terrorize people, telling them that if they do not agree to give >50% of their life to the state, they will be imprisoned and removed from their family. Laws are upheld only for the peasant population while certain classes remain completely outside of the same rules. It is an illegitimate regime that cannot reasonably be thought of in any other way. They rationalize their existence in the same way as the Mafias have done. "hey, pay protection money or we whack you", "hey, you get services for that money" (trash pickup). Not only that, it endaevors to EXPLICITLY be unfair to people in the application of theft, HEAVILY applying its own extreme bias as to what a good citizen is, in direct opposition to promoting freedom and happyness