The term "Terrorism"

zoogs said:
*checks thread title, just to be sure.*

It seemed like you were making the charge that Islamic scholars are not able to stop terrorism because in order to do so they would have to reject Muhammad's ideas.

If I was mistaken, and we agree that rejecting terrorism hardly has to involve overturning anything Muslisms all hold dear, then I apologize.
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Forgive my impatience.
I'm talking about diminishing the spread of cognitive extremism, and in turn reducing the frequency of behavioral extremism.

You're talking about frowning upon instances of behavioral extremism after the fact. Which is all well and good, but has proven to be useless.

And the possibility that people may hold these archaic and barbaric ideas near and dear to their hearts doesn't impress me in the slightest.

 
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Are you saying that this terrorism-causing 'cognitive extremism' can't be diminished without also rejecting Muhammad's ideas? That it's more or less baked into the religion?

I'm disagreeing with that idea, not giving undue credit to the effects of frowning.

(EDIT) - we agree completely on needing to curb cognitive extremism. I suppose we just disagree on how.

 
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Thanks_Tom RR said:
Two aspects of an action need to exist before it is deemed as "an act of terrorism": (1) it constitutes a violent crime under federal or state criminal law and (2) its "intent" is to intimidate a civilian population or government. Whenever there is a mass shooting or bombing, that clearly meets the first criteria of a violent crime. It is the second criteria in which the violent crime must "appear in intent" to intimidate a civilian population or government that the label of terrorism becomes misconstrued.
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There's also at least a bit of an unspoken, soft, third aspect in that the people perpetuating it probably shouldn't be white lol

 
zoogs said:
Are you saying that this terrorism-causing 'cognitive extremism' can't be diminished without also rejecting Muhammad's ideas? That it's more or less baked into the religion?

I'm disagreeing with that idea, not giving undue credit to the effects of frowning.

(EDIT) - we agree completely on needing to curb cognitive extremism. I suppose we just disagree on how.
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I don't know where I land on this, but I've seen convincing arguments both from Muslims and from non, and also both claiming that Islam's pure form promotes peace and compassion for others or that Muhammad's teachings have an inherently flawed and violent tilt that doesn't play well in the modern world.

Can you provide any good resources on your disagreement? Because it's kind of a mess that at least I personally can't make sense of. I know a lot of people in my camp see the majority of peaceful/loving muslims as being what the Bible refers to in terms of Christians as 'luke-warm', that is, they belong to the cultural heritage of their faith system but that it isn't something taken very seriously or zealously. It's a tough question to wrestle with the possibility that jihadists could be the ones interpreting their texts correctly.

 
I don't know. Are the fundamentalist Christians interpreting their texts correctly? Does it matter as long as they're fewer in number?

 
zoogs said:
I don't know. Are the fundamentalist Christians interpreting their texts correctly? Does it matter as long as they're fewer in number?
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I think it very, very much matters in all scenarios, and if it doesn't, size doesn't have much to do with it. People thankfully aren't dying at the hands of fundamentalist Christians much, because that influence has been sewn into the fabric of our country's institutions, but people are still suffering depression, abuse, committing suicide, feeling ostracized and a myriad of other mental health problems at the hands of fundamentalist Christian leaders and organizations.

If, per what the texts actually teach, the fundamentalists responsible for this suffering of certain people ARE interpreting correctly, then Christianity needs to be done with, needs to become fringe, needs to go off a cliff in history, and if they aren't that particular strain probably will still be done with/go off a cliff. But it still matters, and the difference is that it might be prudent to be proactive.

 
AFhusker said:
JJHusker1 said:
I would tend to agree that the word "terrorism" is becoming overused or sometimes prematurely used by the media. However, I'm not so sure the recent events in Nice France are a good example to make a point of this. This situation seems highly likely to be correctly considered terrorism, even if the required criteria has not been completely proven out yet. Referring to it as a "potential act of terrorism" might be more appropriate early on, but it is likely only a matter of time before it is confirmed.

The media of late has been quick to label mass killings and other crimes as terrorism and it kind of bugs me too. Most any crime is terrifying to the victim(s) but that doesn't make every mass killing an act of terrorism. Unfortunately, it is somewhat understandable given that ISIS and certain radical Islam elements have made it extremely well known that they are more than willing to commit these atrocities. However, I do wish the media would refrain from prematurely labeling garden variety (if that is an acceptable way to phrase it) murders and crimes as terrorism.
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The problem with the label of Terrorism is that some acts such as the one in Dallas are Hate Crimes but are mislabeled by some as Terrorism. By definition an act of Terrorism is a Hate Crime as someone really has to hate a group of people if they are willing to give their lives to kill those people. But they are different as a Hate Crime is against one race of person and Terrorism is for political or religious reasons.
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Well, the "hate crime" designation is another pet peeve of mine. I've never understood the reasoning for labeling something a hate crime. Is there really a difference if a person kills 2 different people but one of them he yells racial or homosexual slurs and the other one he doesn't? They're both dead and he killed them both. I don't understand why calling someone names or if the victims race or sexual orientation were motivating factors, why does that make it somehow worse? I don't get it. Seems like it down grades and cheapens the victim when the crime is not designated a hate crime. Aren't they all pretty much "hate crimes"?

 
I think radical Islamic terrorism is 'a hate crime' or in the nature of crime as a result or arising out of hate. But terrorism is primarily motivated out of a desire or determination to kill and injure and attack the population and psychological state of the targeted populous. Not only is the act intended to kill the people directly targeted by the act, but also to shock and strike fear and panic into the hearts and minds of the general population. Hate crimes are primarily aimed at the victim or victims themselves and not so much at the public at large. There is not so much a 'shock and awe' effect intended.

The most recent actions by a radical on a train in Germany swinging an axe of all things, aiming to kill random victims (today's attack) was more terror than crime. Terrorism by radical Muslims today is more act of war than criminal action and should be responded to accordingly. There are literally hundreds of thousands more would be terrorists (aka soldiers) unlike those who commit so called 'hate crimes' who tend to be one of a small handful (less than a few dozen). This is one of nation's biggest mistakes. We keep talking about 'justice' and this is not the right focus. We need to defeat the enemy not attempt to bring them to justice. Terrorism is not a criminal matter although terrorist acts clearly fit the legal definitions for prosecution purposes.

 
but also to shock and strike fear and panic into the hearts and minds of the general population
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Pretty effective at it, too. It doesn't take much to start losing our collective minds.

If, per what the texts actually teach, the fundamentalists responsible for this suffering of certain people ARE interpreting correctly, then Christianity needs to be done with
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As a non-religious person who basically is opposed to all religions, I don't think I agree with that. I'd simply say that Christianity as a whole doesn't accept fundamentalist extremism, so good for them. Wasn't always that way, and it might not always be that way in the future. I do expect religions aside, we'll always be pushing back against extremist movements, especially in unstable parts* of the world where they are ripe to take hold.

*Don't look too far; the U.S. might elect Donald "Build the Wall, Mexicans are Rapists" Trump this November.

 
JJHusker1 said:
AFhusker said:
JJHusker1 said:
I would tend to agree that the word "terrorism" is becoming overused or sometimes prematurely used by the media. However, I'm not so sure the recent events in Nice France are a good example to make a point of this. This situation seems highly likely to be correctly considered terrorism, even if the required criteria has not been completely proven out yet. Referring to it as a "potential act of terrorism" might be more appropriate early on, but it is likely only a matter of time before it is confirmed.

The media of late has been quick to label mass killings and other crimes as terrorism and it kind of bugs me too. Most any crime is terrifying to the victim(s) but that doesn't make every mass killing an act of terrorism. Unfortunately, it is somewhat understandable given that ISIS and certain radical Islam elements have made it extremely well known that they are more than willing to commit these atrocities. However, I do wish the media would refrain from prematurely labeling garden variety (if that is an acceptable way to phrase it) murders and crimes as terrorism.
Click to expand...
The problem with the label of Terrorism is that some acts such as the one in Dallas are Hate Crimes but are mislabeled by some as Terrorism. By definition an act of Terrorism is a Hate Crime as someone really has to hate a group of people if they are willing to give their lives to kill those people. But they are different as a Hate Crime is against one race of person and Terrorism is for political or religious reasons.
Click to expand...
Well, the "hate crime" designation is another pet peeve of mine. I've never understood the reasoning for labeling something a hate crime. Is there really a difference if a person kills 2 different people but one of them he yells racial or homosexual slurs and the other one he doesn't? They're both dead and he killed them both. I don't understand why calling someone names or if the victims race or sexual orientation were motivating factors, why does that make it somehow worse? I don't get it. Seems like it down grades and cheapens the victim when the crime is not designated a hate crime. Aren't they all pretty much "hate crimes"?
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Just sort of thinking out loud here because I've never really thought about this before.
Let's say someone kills their immediate family. What's the course of action to stop that from happening again? Better mental healthcare, I guess. (I don't want to get into making guns harder to get, so let's assume a knife was used
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)

With a "hate crime" I think people believe there are more things that can be done to lessen the number of times it happens in the future. Mental health issues are still there but there is also racism/bigotry that we think society can try to help fix.

So to me the purpose of the label could just be what people feel they can do to stop it next time. If we have less people being killed due to their race then racial tensions are lessening so we might find out that whatever plan we put in place for it 10 years ago is actually working.

Categorizing the murders might help us understand better what's going on in society. The same thing goes with differentiating with shooting someone over an attempted carjacking or killing them because you don't like the way they look. Those tell us 2 different things about society overall.

 
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