It never had any, and I mean literally never, neither in common usage nor in military usage. It has always been code for whoever the imperial core doesn’t like and isn’t a pre-existent government (in which case they become a state sponsor of terrorism).
How do we classify wanton killing of innocent people? Lockerbie bombings come to mind.
I mean just call it what it is. Politically motivated bombing, mass shooting, etc. Basically what the media already does when it’s a white person doing these things.
Innocent is harder to define than you might think, and for me McVey is just another fighter trying to correct what he saw was a massive injustice. He could’ve picked a better target or found more people before acting, but just because his ideological solution isn’t ideal or the same as mine doesn’t mean the problems he was trying to redress weren’t valid, nor does it mean the path to the solution was invalid.
It does have a useful definition I think in “a non-state actor using violence to serve some political goal”, as that at least lets one categorize a murderer who just hated that specific guy as having something different going on with them compared to a murderer who wants their act to shock a nation into taking some action. It’s commonly misused as “someone using violence that we don’t like”, but there is still some utility in understanding a person’s motive for doing something.
That word has lost all meaning in common usage.
It never had any, and I mean literally never, neither in common usage nor in military usage. It has always been code for whoever the imperial core doesn’t like and isn’t a pre-existent government (in which case they become a state sponsor of terrorism).
How would you classify Timothy McVey? This isn’t a loaded question, as I largely agree with you.
How do we classify wanton killing of innocent people? Lockerbie bombings come to mind.
I mean just call it what it is. Politically motivated bombing, mass shooting, etc. Basically what the media already does when it’s a white person doing these things.
Innocent is harder to define than you might think, and for me McVey is just another fighter trying to correct what he saw was a massive injustice. He could’ve picked a better target or found more people before acting, but just because his ideological solution isn’t ideal or the same as mine doesn’t mean the problems he was trying to redress weren’t valid, nor does it mean the path to the solution was invalid.
Sometimes you gotta blow shit up.
Blowing up a daycare is pretty much never the answer.
Wow
Mass murderer?
It does have a useful definition I think in “a non-state actor using violence to serve some political goal”, as that at least lets one categorize a murderer who just hated that specific guy as having something different going on with them compared to a murderer who wants their act to shock a nation into taking some action. It’s commonly misused as “someone using violence that we don’t like”, but there is still some utility in understanding a person’s motive for doing something.
This is what keeping Bush-era laws intact results in.