Cultural genital mutilation, change we can believe in.

This guy was obviously radicalized by the priest at his local church, I say we arrest him

You can't be a Christian terrorist if you're not also Irish, obviously.

Terrorist seems to imply something more meaningful. The IRA wouldn't have liked being considered as only nutters with guns. It's more like an insult to 'not even be a terrorist' than some privilege.

The racism slant has been turned around. 'Terrorist' is the absolute worst these days because it's become associated with non-white groups - that's the racial bias coming in and it's so strong hardly anyone notices.

You are joking about the racism thing, right?

It is so fashionable to throw racism into everything these days. Try to stay a little rational. It facilitates discussion.

Not joking. As it's come up a lot I assume that was at least part of the point of the thread.

Some claim that white people 'just' get called nutters rather than terrorists because of racial bias when it used to be the the case that 'just' a nutter was more condemning. I think that if the prominent terrorist groups were white groups then that would still be the case - that's down to racial bias.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is some racial bias involved but it's probably more political. If people who commit multiple murders in the name of right wing ideology are terrorists that puts the right wing in a bind. Just because they tend to be old white crazy guys with guns just gives the appearance of a racial bias.

I do not think either of the preceding two comments are on target.

First, the guy in Colorado was a terrorist, strictly speaking. He targeted civilians for a political goal, albeit not a rational goal.

The question of whether the guy in Colorado was a "nutter" is significant because it gets to the question of the existence of an organized group prepared to systematically use violence to advance their political agenda. If such an organized effort exists, then one would expect continued attacks with a learning curve such that future attacks become better organized and more deadly. If on the other hand, this is the activity of a lone unstable individual, then the likely future is possibly similar isolated attacks occasionally. Certainly still a concern, but a different strategic picture than what one faces with Isis or Al Qaeda.

I do not think either race or the nature of the ideology behind the action is really a driver in the language of the discussion.

Okay just to show I'm not making it up, here's a fairly typical sentiment
It's the right racial bias but confused as a result of the same more insidious racial bias.

I agree. This seems more like protest leading to an individual going way OTT rather than anything organised.

There is a sort of meta debate going on in which wingnuts (and many centrists) don't want to acknowledge all that is clearly terrorism as terrorism. They realize that doing so will incriminate their own extremist ideological cousins as well as the U.S. government ultimately. The debate over what is and what isn't terrorism, which is, ostensibly, beyond simple, is so highly contrived in its contentiousness that it would make for good comedy if so many innocent people didn't die as a result.

Since terrorism these day have specific judicial consequences when it comes to response and precautions (for example what powers and rights courts or intelligence agencies can invoke, if you can involve military forces and whatnot), it is important not to water the term down. An act might have the same consequence for victims as many acts of terrorism, and it can be tempting to label it as such in everyday speech - but there can be prudent reasons to avoid doing so from a political and judicial perspective. Sadly, many take that as a weakness and it is easy to portray it as such.

Some would say all terrorists are crazy, which is a dangerous way to view the world. Yes, terrorism likely appeals to a certain type of unstable individuals, and I'm sure some forms of paranoia, schizophrenia and narcissism can make individuals commit acts of terrorism or near identical to terrorism. Still, many forms of terrorism are calculated and done by rational minds. If you ignore that, you weaken yourself towards those kinds of groups and individuals.

It's the same argument you see when the term "war" is employed. In everyday speech it might merely be an armed conflict with a military response / action of a certain scale, but the term "war" actually has a judicial meaning for what the state can do, can't do or even has to do, and it isn't wise to use it for every kind of armed military action.

Many governments in the world today label any kind of act of sedition as "terrorism", to allow them to avoid international sanctions. That isn't a concern in this case, but it's a sound reminder that for a government to label something "terrorism" should conform to fairly strict rules.

"Terrorism" is a vague, imprecise term. Ok.

"Terrorism" is a vague, imprecise term. Ok.

adios you're a dickhead.

Is that clear and precise enough for you?

That's one interpretation and probably correct when it comes to everyday speech. I don't really agree that it is in vague outside general speech though, it's more that it is very contested term.

More dereds quality posting.

(Hope that's clear enough for you)

You guys really are unchained.

Adios should change his username to "flatworm" - unevolved simpleton.

By virtue of being clear and precise it's higher quality than pretty much all of yours chez.

You could aim higher dereds.

Remember you think you're better than me.

Moving on from the pleasantly abnormal dereds

It is contested but it's not clear how much people are saying different things.

With this incident is anyone saying anything different about what should be done? Does any of it hinge on whether you call him a terrorist and someone else call him a nutter?

You can be both a terrorist and a nutter.

In any event I think the treatment of this case depends on if he acted alone or if there was any kind of organization behind his actions.

It communicated exactly what I wanted to say in a manner that the person I was referring to would understand. I get that you think that standard deficient.

All terrorists are nutters, not all nutters etc.

I agree. What I mean is that I'm not sure any of us disagree on what should be done even if we disagree on what we call 'terrorist'. For all of us it will depend on the facts.