posted 11-14- 07:53 PM               

A terrorist is not just someone who hates or has a particular political leaning. It's someone who, not representing a country at war, tries to force a political change or who carries out their hate through attacks on civilian population or on military personnel not at war.

White supremacy can be a belief but not result in terrorism.

posted 11-14- 09:10 PM               

IMO there are already laws on the books to deal with abortion clinic bombers. These new terrorist laws were designed to apprehend terrorists using weapons of mass destruction, especially foreign terrorists.

While the clinic bombers, and the KKK and the Unibomber types are certainly guilty of terrorism, isolated acts of terrorism by a small group of people can be dealt with by our normal legal system. Using weapons of mass destruction are another matter which our normal legal system is not capable of handling.

The same arguement applies to the Klan, Burkey. By the way, when was the last time you heard of the Klan terrorising anyone? I think our current laws have done the job.

posted 11-14- 11:21 PM               

Terrorism only happens when a state (or state-like entity) wants to declare a war that it can obviously NEVER win because they don't have the ability.

So in desperation they resort to terrorsm for political gain... it must be for political gain. So Al Quida is terrorism, and the IRA is terrorism... but abortion clinic stuff is murder.

If the anti-abortion people got well organized enough to be considered state-like, then they might be headed for terrorism. Let's say if the Catholic church held the position that killing abortion doctors was part of their mission... one could start seeing a path to a terrorist state. The Catholic church could never win a war on its own, and they DEMAND this change... so they resort to terrorism WITH THE PURPOSE of changing a political situation- in this case they want a law to make abortions illegal.

If you use terrorism in a civic sense, then any violent crime is terrorism really.

See the reason we don't fear weakly-organized violence is that it is not state driven by an orginzed group of people who aren't going away any time soon.

People try to walk the grey area in between violent crime and terrosism by creating a new term "hate crime." I don't believe in hate-crime legislation, but I inderstand the logic.

The idea is that when you let's say kill a Jew because you hate all Jews... then this *hints* at true terrorism... NOT because all jews are victims! This is the bad mistake in approach. It is really more like terrosim because ALL ANTI-SEMITICS are possible criminals! So this frightens on a higher level because any jew feels more like a potential victim... and the situation has no end in site.

posted 11-15- 11:09 AM               

Pretend for a moment that I am a white supremacist. (I am not but lets pretend...) If I believe in the superiority of the white race and even voice this opinion. Thats all it is, my opinion. If I go and kill (or perfom other acts) so that those who are not white are intimidated I have become a terrorist (yes, the KKK is a terrorist organisation).

The original question is, as SV pointed out, a political word, not a civics word.

It all comes down to "das ding an sich" or "the thing in itself".

posted 11-15- 12:51 PM               

Of course the problem is that the KKK and many other white supremacists advocate and encourage violence. They often have no trouble motivating loosely associated, yet easily manipulable surrogates, such as the skinheads, to act for them. Groups like the KKK often paint themselves as a people under siege so that they can convince other psychotic individuals to act in "defense" of their cause.

Case in point, read this typical essay from this typical KKK website...

http://www.k-k-k.com/miles.htm

Particularly, look at the last paragraph where it says...

"We are the fog, the First of God! Let us again begin to plan, to train and to act as such in deadly seriousness. For, if we do not, we shall be quite dead, seriously!"

You can find similar language on almost all white supremacist websites. Such statements are almost interchangable with certain Bin Laden statements, are they not?

In many ways, the KKK's MO is similar to Al Qaeda's MO. Like Al Qaeda, the KKK realizes that their "troops" are much easier to manipulate when those troops are convinced that they are acting in defense of their cause or in defense of their very existance.

So, I guess my question is, what do we do with these people who don't go so far as to commit violence themselves, but who openly advocate and encourage violence?

>Being a white supremacist by itself is not an act of terror, it is a philosophy.

Heh. It's difficult for me to see white supremacism as a "philosophy". I think it's probably more like a mental illness... but I see your point.