By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Terrorism v Nut Job
My understanding is Terrorism is an act by person or persons with a tie to a group united by a cause or ideology .
Nut Job is a person that just wake up one day and have a brain snap. But this is where it gets complicated.
A few times in the past a couple of people have made a pact and go on a killing spree. ...are they Terrorists or Nut Jobs?
6 years 28 weeks ago in Health & Safety - China
I can't answer your question, the difference can be a very fine line I think.
And really, it shouldn't matter - if people are going around killing others they should be stopped if possible regardless of what the media or politicians choose to call them.
But the sick thing is that if they can be labeled a terrorist, then all sorts of new laws and intrusive crap can be pushed onto us. If it's a nut job then carry on as usual, nothing to see here and nothing can or will be done.
BHGAL:
Not sure there is or should be a difference. An asshole is an asshole.. a nut job is a nut job. Yhe Terrorist thing has taken on a meaning that is just silly. a BAD GUY, is a BAD GUY. do not need a dictionary for that.
Shining_brow:
Actually, Engles, dictionary definitions differ, and it's not quite so clear.
If a nutter somehow decides to champion the cause of freedom for all ring-tail possums, and goes on a shooting spree... is she a terrorist, or a nutjob?
There are blurred lines.... especially when you have LOTS of nutjobs who decide to 'join' a cause in order to justify an action (eg, the ISIS crap).
Englteachted:
BHGAL: Meanings are meanings and feelings are feelings. I understand what you mean and how you feel but classification exists for a reason
Stiggs:
Yeah Ok Ted I'm sure you're right, the dictionary definition is the definition and that's the definition. Except your definition say political objective. What about religious objectives? Aren't the crazy Muslim radicals terrorists too? We're told they are.
And what about the kid born in a western country and who gets bullied and ostricized by everyone in his town because his parents were immigrants from some middle eastern country, so he grows up angry, resentful, lonely, hating society and he's a seriously fucked up unit until the day he meets some dudes who accept him and treat him as an equal - and convert him to a radical version of the religion he sort of follows because he was raised with it but doesn't really give a crap about. And then he drives a car into a crowd of people at a mall.
How do you define him? Could go either way I reckon.
Or what about the redneck kid who has all sorts of personal issues because he was raised in a trailer park with an alcoholic father who beat him and his mother and when he eventually ended up in foster care he was sexually abused and beaten up some more. When he finally ends up in prison he gets recruited by some skinhead gang and ends up firebombing a mosque and killing a few people while screaming white power and f**k off back to where you came from. Would he be a terrorist or just a nutter?
And that's the problem with labeling people as being either a terrorist or a nutter IMO.
BHGAL said it right. A bad guy is a bad guy.
My point is that treating them differently according to how some politician or media wanker decides to portray them is just stupid.
If a guy shoots up a mall while screaming something about Allah, the way it's handled shouldn't be different from if another guy shoots up a mall because he was bullied at school.
I can't answer your question, the difference can be a very fine line I think.
And really, it shouldn't matter - if people are going around killing others they should be stopped if possible regardless of what the media or politicians choose to call them.
But the sick thing is that if they can be labeled a terrorist, then all sorts of new laws and intrusive crap can be pushed onto us. If it's a nut job then carry on as usual, nothing to see here and nothing can or will be done.
BHGAL:
Not sure there is or should be a difference. An asshole is an asshole.. a nut job is a nut job. Yhe Terrorist thing has taken on a meaning that is just silly. a BAD GUY, is a BAD GUY. do not need a dictionary for that.
Shining_brow:
Actually, Engles, dictionary definitions differ, and it's not quite so clear.
If a nutter somehow decides to champion the cause of freedom for all ring-tail possums, and goes on a shooting spree... is she a terrorist, or a nutjob?
There are blurred lines.... especially when you have LOTS of nutjobs who decide to 'join' a cause in order to justify an action (eg, the ISIS crap).
Englteachted:
BHGAL: Meanings are meanings and feelings are feelings. I understand what you mean and how you feel but classification exists for a reason
Stiggs:
Yeah Ok Ted I'm sure you're right, the dictionary definition is the definition and that's the definition. Except your definition say political objective. What about religious objectives? Aren't the crazy Muslim radicals terrorists too? We're told they are.
And what about the kid born in a western country and who gets bullied and ostricized by everyone in his town because his parents were immigrants from some middle eastern country, so he grows up angry, resentful, lonely, hating society and he's a seriously fucked up unit until the day he meets some dudes who accept him and treat him as an equal - and convert him to a radical version of the religion he sort of follows because he was raised with it but doesn't really give a crap about. And then he drives a car into a crowd of people at a mall.
How do you define him? Could go either way I reckon.
Or what about the redneck kid who has all sorts of personal issues because he was raised in a trailer park with an alcoholic father who beat him and his mother and when he eventually ended up in foster care he was sexually abused and beaten up some more. When he finally ends up in prison he gets recruited by some skinhead gang and ends up firebombing a mosque and killing a few people while screaming white power and f**k off back to where you came from. Would he be a terrorist or just a nutter?
And that's the problem with labeling people as being either a terrorist or a nutter IMO.
BHGAL said it right. A bad guy is a bad guy.
My point is that treating them differently according to how some politician or media wanker decides to portray them is just stupid.
If a guy shoots up a mall while screaming something about Allah, the way it's handled shouldn't be different from if another guy shoots up a mall because he was bullied at school.
Does not have to be tied to a group. it is an act of violence to frighten people in order to achieve a political objective according to Webster's dictionary.
Liberals are supposed to be the fact based side. The LV guy had no political motive and killed himself and was connected to no group.
Idiot liberal dumbasses are online crying about why he's not labeled a terrorist (oh because he's white). Liberals are supposed to be college educated!
This is why they (Dems) will continue to lose they've lost all grasp of reality.
The damn word is in the dictionary, clearly defined, it's not about what you fucking feel.
Here's the key reason why law enforcement needs to clearly define it. LV, started and ended with him. Marseilles, did not start with him and will not end with him.
Shining_brow:
Like... bombing an area from drones so that the local population are too scared to harbour the enemy
The deliberate bombing of the Luistania to get the US into the war.
Actually, as I wrote above - one person's political ideology can be another's nutter... there are lines to be drawn! Religious nutters, for example.
Englteachted:
Lusitania?! Going so far back to try and make Muslim terrorists seem ok, you need your head examined.
Learn the difference between collateral and terrorism. Drone attacks target actual combatants but without regard for the innocent. That is the argument against drone strikes also that they're being done illegally without a declaration of war.
“One mans revolutionary, is another mans freedom fighter”. Within the most commonly accepted definition of terrorism, the key element is ‘political’.
In another life, we were taught the purpose of Terrorism was to affect regime change. To use a campaign of horrifying acts against the key political figures, and associated collateral damage to the civilian population, in an effort to convince the public, the current form of government couldn’t protect them. A critical element is to force the incumbent government to rely on increasingly harsher methods of security control resulting in the citizens loss of liberty and as a result rallying for regime change at any cost. Curfews, Gun confiscation, racism, etc. Unfortunately, Islamic based religious sects terroristic actors are changing this paradigm to a religious rather than political change.
Persons like the LV shooter, not having published a public manifesto, tend to fall under the “Nut Job” category. Only the woman traveling with him may help us truly understand what triggered him to conscientiously plan and carry out his heinous plan resulting in such a tragic mass loss of life. His personal profile doesn’t fit the average lone wolf or terrorist pattern.
So back to my original Question.
How do we define this event?
Terrorists or Nut Jobs?
http://ri.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrBTvZJM9RZCnwAUBfJ1yU5;_ylu=X3oDMTBzdW...
How about when nutters join a cause?
There are many militaries around the world that no doubt have (literally) psychopaths and sociopaths (ie, technically insane), but are able to use their -pathy to effect.
They stand on both sides of this argument - being both nutters, AND fighting for a political ideology ("I lurve my countreeeee").
I've said this a number of times... most terrorist attacks that have been carried out in the last few years (and probably forever!) - especially when they suicide .... the person is a nutter, who has chosen to take on a political ideology to justify their willingness to kill.
Anders Breivik.... definite political objectives (Robert Spencer!!!)... but clearly a nutter as well!
OTOH, all the mass shootings in the US - especially at schools by the dads or kids... surely they're saying "I've wanted things to be different here on a larger scale - but it didn't, and so I'm now making a point". The father who can't see his kids - change the legal system. The school student who's getting bullied - the school culture (including rules) need to change. The individual is important - not just the culture.
Many times, there's a simple "this situation is not right - it needs to change". Ideal. Political (for a certain definition).
The significance of this - if it's a lone nutter (even if one who has joined a cause), then we respond to them as nutters - people who need help. If we respond to them as a terrorist, then we start branding anyone who agrees with their ideology/belief as though they're ALL going to do the same eventually... and get seriously paranoid (and putting place bans, and laws, etc etc etc) that affect the whole group, rather than just the nutters in the group.
philbravery:
Hey its after lunch so im 3 sheets to the wind and you rant line after line...keep it simple and short.will you.
philbravery:
Ok I've read only the the fire three sentences and i agree ....but why the fuck would you let them have a gun or anything that is sharp
I just read this article that defines terrorism under Nevada law. It also has the federal definition.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452097/las-vegas-shooting-stephen-...
"any act that involves the use of attempted use of sabotage, coercion or violence which is intended to (a) cause great bodily harm or death to the general population; or (b) cause substantial destruction, contamination or impairment of (1) any building or infrastructure, communications, transportation, utilities or services, or (2) any natural resource or the environment."
According to the law in Nevada, he's a terrorist.
Can't blame you, this is not an easy question to answer even for those in the UN. It took them, apparently, decades to come up with this definition.
There is detailed dicussion of what terrorism includes and excludes in wiki dictionary. Below is an excerpt.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the United Nations attempts to define the term foundered mainly due to differences of opinion between various members about the use of violence in the context of conflicts over national liberation and self-determination."[8] These divergences have made it impossible to conclude a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that incorporates a single, all-encompassing, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism.[9]
In addition, since 1994, the United Nations General Assembly has condemned terrorist acts using the following political description of terrorism: "Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them."[10]
Shining_brow:
So, technically, it's not terrorism if you just want to go out and kill and/or maim your target (rather than make people afraid of you).
earthizen:
That act you talk about would bring terror to the mass, wouldn't it?
Here are the finer details on terrorism from the wiki link. It also falls under point #3 of the 'include' list below.
A textbook definition of terrorism includes the following:[5]
It is the use of violence or threat of violence in the pursuit of political aims, religious, or ideological change.
It can only be committed by non-state actors or undercover personnel serving on the behalf of their respective governments.
It reaches more than the immediate target victims and is also directed at targets consisting of a larger spectrum of society.
It is both mala prohibita (i.e., crime that is made illegal by legislation) and mala in se (i.e., crime that is inherently immoral or wrong).
The following criteria of violence or threat of violence fall outside of the definition of terrorism:[6][7]
Wartime (including a declared war) or peacetime acts of violence committed by a nation state against another nation state regardless of legality or illegality that are carried out by properly uniformed forces or legal combatants of such nation states.
Reasonable acts of self-defense, such as the use of force to kill, apprehend, or punish criminals who pose a threat to the lives of humans or property.
Legitimate targets in war, such as enemy combatants and strategic infrastructure that are an integral part of the enemy's war effort.
Collateral damage, including the infliction of incidental damage to non-combatant targets during an attack on or attempting to attack legitimate targets in war.
