What does it take to be called a terrorist?
Correct me if I am wrong but environmental nutcases who blow up empty SUVs and burn vacation homes are labeled eco-terrorists [1] but a government-hating individual who pre-plans a dramatic attack that resembles a previous attack on this country is a plain old criminal or a crazy person? If you read his suicide note, it is amply clear that this was an individual hell bent on destroying all systems and hated capitalism as much as he did the government.
What gets my goat is people who sigh and say they understand the man’s frustration and although what he did was wrong, it was the system that failed him. W.T.F. Weren’t similar concerns [2] expressed by ordinary folks in the Middle East when 9/11 happened? It was wrong then and it is wrong now. Violence is never the answer to any grievance you have. As I said on Twitter in response to someone who expressed sadness, dancing naked on the street is a crazy act but ramming a plane in a federal building is pure unadulterated terrorism. We called it terrorism when a plane was crashed into the Pentagon to protest the country’s defense policies. So why can’t we call it terrorism when some one does the same with tax policies? If you hate the government, don’t want to pay taxes, and love guns, you are in luck because such a country exists. It is called Somalia. I’m told piracy is a fun vocation in those parts. You might consider moving there.
It may be cool to pick on the I.R.S. for being bloodsuckers but death and taxes are inevitable and even if the tax collecting department was called Charlie’s Chocolate Factory and the tax rate was low enough to only fund wars, it would still be hated [3]. But grumbling about paying your taxes is one thing and ramming a plane into a federal building is another [4]. The United States had a similar attack against the government when Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City and I don’t think he is still considered a terrorist. No matter how dire your situation is or financial state is, the only right you have is to take your own life.
So that’s why I have to ask, what does it take to be called a terrorist? Just calling him insane is an insult to insane people. Let us call him for what he really is – a murderous cowardly cold-blooded terrorist.
Footnotes:
- The so-called ‘eco-terrorism has yet to claim a life [↩]
- “Now the United States knows that its actions have consequences” or the milder “At least now they know what terrorism is” [↩]
- We would fight a whole lot less wars if that were to happen, trust me [↩]
- I hope saying it over and over will convey how dastardly the act was [↩]
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“Correct me if I am wrong but environmental nutcases who blow up empty SUVs and burn vacation homes are labeled eco-terrorists but a government-hating individual who pre-plans a dramatic attack that resembles a previous attack on this country is a plain old criminal or a crazy person?”
And religious zealots who pre-plan assassinations are just “protecting life.” That’s right. These are the absurd times we live in. Logic and reason are lost on these sheep. Welcome to hell.
6 months ago reply“What does it take to be called a terrorist?”
Minority? Middle-Eastern descent?
“dancing naked on the street is a crazy act”
6 months ago replyWhy is dancing naked “crazy”?
@Maitri: Actually that movement should be called Pro-White-Christian-American-Life but that makes a longer bumper sticker.
@Niket: On the street. And nope, I will not stop you :)
6 months ago replyWasn’t there a lot of hand-wringing and hemming-and-hawing among liberal circles when it came to calling Nidal Malik Hasan a terrorist? Let’s call him as well as this dude a terrorist. After all, wasn’t Ted Kaczinski also called a terrorist?
Seems to me that if we combine the left and the right, we will get the correct yardstick – since both have their weak spots/taboo areas which complement each other. ;) :)
6 months ago replyOf course, Nidal Hassan was a terrorist when it was revealed that he killed for ideology rather than personal reasons. Joe Stack’s ‘manifesto’ is similar. At least I don’t think that there is a right-left divide in calling acts of terror what they are. Rest is all politics.
6 months ago replystacks wanted to change the tax law for himself, not any altruistic motive behind his plane-bombing. and his diatribe against the “system” and his threat that “he is the first of many” who will be “inspired by his one single act of rebellion”. and now he has fan-websites? what is wrong with people? do ends always justify the means? only divide that exists is between the murderer and the murdered.
6 months ago reply