What makes a terrorist?

[Uncle Timmy]

Uncle Timmy, have you ever thought about becoming a lawyer?

Haha, would you guess I come from a family of opinionated Engineers and Lawyers?

Where do you think I learned to argue succinctly and methodically?

If you voice an opinion at our family table you had damn well be able to defend it.

 

[30A Skunkape]

Uncle Timmy, have you ever thought about becoming a lawyer?

He does not want the pay cut

 

[6thGen]

Internet Hero,
I'm busy right now but I'll brief you on this. First, if you don't believe there was civil oppression in the US in the 50s and 60s, I'll offer Exhibit A.

Not exactly civil freedom. Not ironic either, when the corrupt state is the one outsourcing terror, which you'd be arguing if this was any other topic. Same thing with the 70s, as there was still a ton of civil unrest at the time. I'd include conscription in oppression of freedoms as well, so again we were not the beacon of light at that time.

On Colombia, they are a relatively free society, but they aren't very strong on property rights, a key freedom, or freedom from corruption. As I've previously stated, I'm for the decriminalization of drugs, so it's not a hard argument to make to show that those committing the terrorist acts feel that their livelihood is being oppressed (pick up the second to last Driveby Truckers CD for a poetic take on the black market and oppression). I don't agree with them, but I don't agree with terrorism, either.

In the 80s, you've discounted attacks on free societies by those from oppressive governments. At a glance, I'm betting you didn't include PanAm 830, which was an attack on the US by a Jordanian, or any attacks on free societies by folks like Carlos the Jackal.

My point is that terrorists are more likely to be from oppressive regimes. Not necessarily attacking them.

Here's a better source I found along the way as well. No little flags.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/5902.htm

And another good article by Krueger.

http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i39/39b01001.htm

 

[Uncle Timmy]

Internet Hero,
I'm busy right now but I'll brief you on this. First, if you don't believe there was civil oppression in the US in the 50s and 60s, I'll offer Exhibit A.

Oh 6thGen,

You are showing an example of civil and political rights oppression against blacks.

The majority of terrorist incidents listed in your source were by the KKK, not the oppressed ones. That is contrary to your argument.

If that was an intended Hail Mary to save your effort here at the end I'd say you lobbed it about 50 yards short.

And besides, by your assertion, it was a 95% correlation- looks like that was wrong and now you have 2 points that you need to conceed and admit error on. Spare us the anecdotal evidence, we need numbers.

I did warn you that sticking around would ojnly lead to further embarassment. Now you're deeper in the hole.

 

[6thGen]

Oh 6thGen,

You are showing an example of civil and political rights oppression against blacks.

The majority of terrorist incidents listed in your source were by the KKK, not the oppressed ones. That is contrary to your argument.

If that was an intended Hail Mary to save your effort here at the end I'd say you lobbed it about 50 yards short.

And besides, by your assertion, it was a 95% correlation- looks like that was wrong and now you have 2 points that you need to conceed and admit error on. Spare us the anecdotal evidence, we need numbers.

I did warn you that sticking around would ojnly lead to further embarassment. Now you're deeper in the hole.

No, I'm showing that the US was not a free society at that time. When there isn't a free and fair system of justice, there is a vacuum that is sometimes filled with terrorism. I never said that it was a 95% correlation, I said that it was in 2007. I'm not conceding anything since you shift the argument every chance you get. You haven't conceded that oppressive states are a terrorism catalyst. You claim more illogical victory than an aging Ali.

 

[Uncle Timmy]

I never said that it was a 95% correlation, I said that it was in 2007. I'm not conceding anything since you shift the argument every chance you get.

"95% correlation. I'm not conceding a damn thing"??. "The other years I looked at were consistent with this year."- 6thGen


My pointing out your contradictions does not constitute ?shifting the argument?.

 

[Uncle Timmy]

No, I'm showing that the US was not a free society at that time. When there isn't a free and fair system of justice, there is a vacuum that is sometimes filled with terrorism.

Let?s just savor the absurdity of this position for a moment shall we...............................

....................just when you thought 6thGen logic couldn?t get any weirder.............

So you have unilaterally expanded the definition of civil and political oppression soooooooooo broad that now even the United States of America, in the 1960s and 70's constituted an oppressive society.

And conveniently, now that your definition of oppression is so loose we can now conclude that (surprise) -yes indeed! It is true! Almost every act of terrorism has sprung from oppression! Because oppression is almost universal!

What you failed to consider in your euphoric rush to save some sliver of rhetoric dignity here is that this argument is inherently self defeating.

If we simply expand the definition of poverty (from the original article) to the same degree you have done here with ?oppression? than we also find that yes, 95% of terrorists come from impoverished areas and therefore we need to reconsider the idea of poverty as the ?root cause? of terrorism. Since , as you state, we only need find a high correlation.

ie- If the KKK committed acts of terror against blacks because they lived in a generally oppressive society, then suicide bombers are committing terrorism because they too are living in a generally impoverished society.

Clearly poverty is not the ?root cause? of terrorism, and neither is civil and political oppression.

I am truly excited to see where your bizarre performance will take us next..................

 

[savvytangerine]

:boxing:

 

[Smiling JOe]

Not exactly civil freedom. Not ironic either, when the corrupt state is the one outsourcing terror, which you'd be arguing if this was any other topic. Same thing with the 70s, as there was still a ton of civil unrest at the time. I'd include conscription in oppression of freedoms as well, so again we were not the beacon of light at that time.

Did I miss something in your original points? I thought you were stating that the terrorists were the people being oppressed. In the photo above, the terrorists were the oppressors, as was the KKK.

I asked you to explain why the terrorists living in oppression, would chose to terrorize countries/people from other places, rather than terrorizing the people or gov't which oppressed them. I think your point of the photo shows that my question has merit, and makes the data in the article in post #1 look invalid.

 

[Smiling JOe]

"never trust whitey." -- The Jerk