Brandon9000 wrote:Thomas wrote:Lash wrote:Were the Revolutionaries terrorists in your opinion?
Certainly federal law in the United States would have considered the Founders to be terrorists, especially with acts like the Boston Tea Party in mind. According to
US Code, Section 2656f(d), "(2) the term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents".
I say guilty as charged.
I agree that The Boston Tea Party was terrorism, but I believe that it was "good terrorism." The non-combatant targets were never intended to be harmed and were not harmed. Furthermore, it was
not merely intended to express a political point of view which could just as well have been expressed in elections, but as rebellion against a colonial master which had granted itself unlimited taxing power without consulting the people taxed.
Interesting that the US Code, Section 2656f(d) doesn't define terrorism in more murderous terms, because THAT is the main weapon of choice by these rogue factions; fear of death. Violence seems too general a term in helping Americans understand the scope and ideology of terrorism today.
That's the first I've heard of "good terrorism" in my lifetime. If it involves a society yearning to be free from their autocratic rulers, then how is that much different from Al Qaeda yearning to be free from American occupation in the Middle East? Thomas makes a valid point regarding Brandon's use of the term "good terrorism."
In other words, the Boston Tea Party was a revolution. It was also people exercising their right of grievances and to protest their autocratic rulers for taxation without representation. Brandon points out the lack of violence, which would elude to the fact that the colonial Americans weren't intent on just killing massive amounts of people to make their point.
