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Politics : Polite Political Discussion- is it Possible? An Experiment. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (950)	8/14/2006 7:10:55 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1695

In my post I think I mentioned "misguided" wasn't appropriate. My point was only about "idealism". I wasn't addressing the post it came from. I think these young terrorists are idealists. I think you probably have to be an idealist to want to give up your life (whether by spending it in prison if caught, or blowing yourself up), for some intangible goal. As I said, I don't think they are misguided- which implies mistaken. I think they are very dangerous to us, and not mistaken at all about what they want to do, and from our point of view mistaken doesn't begin to cover what they are, and I'm not sure what we do about them. Did you miss the fact that I addressed "misguided"? I think you can be an idealist and vengeful. I don't think the two things are mutually exclusive, nor do I think these terrorists are involved in vengeance without an end. I think they believe certain things will be accomplished by their actions- although I do think expectations vary from group to group wrt what they want to accomplish (and I think those expectations are often highly irrational and impractical- which can go hand in hand with idealism). Just my opinion.

To: Rambi who wrote (950)	8/14/2006 7:28:53 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1695

I went to the thesaurus. I found positive terms- but also terms like "radical", "grandiose", "impractical", "illusory" "pretentious" "unreal", "unrealistic", "unfeasible", "zealot", "unworkable" and "utopian". IMO utopian can be a very negative term, and I think most people who know the term understand that- since utopian ideas so often turn out to be dystopias in practice. The USSR, China, Nazi Germany- all were conceived as utopias. So I think we'll disagree on idealist. But we agree on misguided.

To: Rambi who wrote (950)	8/14/2006 8:57:46 PM
From: thames_sider	Respond to of 1695

My phrase would be "alleged attempted murderers". I could care less about their ideals; Jack the Ripper or the Son of Sam may well have had high ideals, too. But murder is murder. Having said which, of course, no one has been killed, and as far as we can tell so far no one has even been charged. Hence my use of the term "alleged". Here's one from last year (up to 2004): news.bbc.co.uk ARRESTS, CHARGES & DETENTION 701 arrested under Terrorism Act 2000 119 have been charged under it 17 have been convicted under the legislation However, research by BBC Radio 4's Today programme suggests that not all those convicted under the Act were accused of participating in international terrorism. Information gathered with the help of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Institute of Race Relations provided details of 13 convictions. It emerged that three of the convictions related to Irish republicanism and four to the Irish loyalist movement. Two stemmed from a Sikh terrorism case and one involved Tamil terrorism. Only three related to some form of Islamic terrorism. And this implies the numbers haven't changed much... uk.news.yahoo.com Since 2000, police have arrested over 700 people -- many of them Muslims -- under tough anti-terrorism laws, but have brought only a handful to court. The vast majority have been released without charge

To: Rambi who wrote (950)	8/14/2006 9:48:55 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1695

were just some young misguided muslim idealists I believe that is appropriate terminology for the message I posted. At the other end of the terrorist scale you have the seasoned professional psychopath like Abu Nidal. It would take time and experience for those captured to progress to that stage. Any risk analysis of what such person may be capable of makes one shudder. You also seem to be unaware to the fact that thousands of innocent civilians, including six month old babies, have been deliberately killed by people other then muslim extremist terrorists. What am I supposed to term those people? "Folks who know what they are doing"?? One persons "terrorist" is anothers "freedom fighter" after all. You just have to look at current events or pick up a history book, even in the USA.