Goddamn nice term paper. Ask me anything!

okay, it's over a year old, but i just read it again, i like it, and well, i'm having a moment, so, here you go. you'll like reading it.

http://www.thinkpol.net/soc2010term.pdf

so where do you draw the line between 'activist' and 'terrorist'? Method? Motive?

perhaps that will be the subject of a subsequent paper.

:)

but if you cannot define your terms, it's going to be hard to engage with your argument.

oh, you mean the paper.

well, terrorism can be defined in strict terms as an act of violence against innocents for larger purposes. this is what people are afraid of, and what the united states to some extent correctly is fighting against.

insofar as the majority of violence at recent protests is between demonstrators and police (who are themselves often the ones starting the fight), the definition of 'terrorism' cannot therefore apply to them. there is a difference between mass expression (even militant expression) and terrorism. distilled, it is a methodical difference.

this calls in to question the practice of using recent hastily passed 'terrorism' legislation against protesters.

Is it who employs the violence? Or the target chosen?

so either the question is irrelevant, or i'm not grokking your angle here. help me out...?

but i would say again that real terrorism has nothing to do with legitimate dissent of the kind that occurs in this country every day. even some stupid hooligan who smashes his local starbucks during a protest is not a 'terrorist.' he is a vandal, with no legitmacy, and we have laws for dealing with them that don't require the 'T' word to be effective.

the thing that worries me—the reason i wrote this paper over a year ago—is that all dissent could someday be lumped into the category of terrorism. maybe not publicly, but if the enforcement tools are the same, well..