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Comment by hughw | Hacker News Reader

Nobody's talking about how "terrorism" has expanded to mean, in law, armed opposition the the government. Throw in terrorism and the sentence goes up dramatically.

Is it possible to oppose the government with arms yet not be a terrorist? I'd say, yes. But I never expect to see a prosecution acknowledge that. They're even making drug smugglers into terrorists and murdering them extrajudicially.

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This is one of the great contradictions in American society. The right to bear arms is enshrined as a fundamental right in the Constitution, but the state will treat anybody who chooses to exercise this right as being an inherent threat. This is especially the case when it intersects with certain law enforcement practices, such as no-knock warrants. There have been multiple cases where police execute a no-knock warrant and kill someone who thinks they're being burglarized for holding a gun, or someone shoots at the police without knowing they're police and then gets charged with attempted murder of a law enforcement officer.

Two of those people were not involved in any of the planning and discussion of weapons via Signal and still got 30 year sentences, for the magazines bit. The shooter claimed he only shot because he saw the officer shooting at the back of fleeing unarmed protestors - this type of law enforcement is frowned upon in most other countries but regularly happens unopposed in the USA and officers will claim and most of the time get qualified immunity. The whole prosecution feels of a kind of the misuse of laddering and felony murder charges.

> The shooter claimed he only shot because he saw the officer shooting at the back of fleeing unarmed protestors

This is still not the right move. I think I remember people being convicted of shooting back at cops directly shooting at them. But shooting at cops because you think they are shooting at protestors is never going to end up properly.

Then what's the right to it doing in the constitution?

The constitution is fine. The main issue is about definition of oppression that is shifted by Left. And can I point the dissonance here as you seem to not get it - you want to overthrow "oppression"... and AT THE SAME TIME complain that "opressive" government has unfair laws against you? If you do not succeed at overthrowing "oppression", expect to be punished like losers, as state has monopoly on violence and is free to punish harshly those that challenge that monopoly.

There's no dissonance in saying that the oppression is oppressive and the oppressors violate their own laws.

I think the dissonance is in thinking the actions of these protestors is ethical and legal.

There’s a right to bear arms, not to brandish and shoot them.

Nowhere does the Constitution say you can fire on police if you think they are doing something wrong. Especially when you’re incorrect.

I think the rule for insurrections is that you better be right. Or at least more powerful than the government (see American Revolution).

Armed opposition to the government seems like a pretty central definition of terrorism to me. Of course one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, but that's true in all armed conflicts between nations and aspiring nations.

Isn't terrorism typically carried out against civilians and non-combatants? Surely not all violence is terrorism or it ceases to have any meaning.

If you're treating cops and guards at an immigration detention facility as "non-civilians" and "combatants", then this is a good sign that the thing you're doing is engaging in some kind of ideological rebellion against the state. Which is fair to call terrorism, unless you're in favor of it, in which case you'd call it freedom fighting or rebellion but with positive valence.

People who are above the law and shoot at other people with impunity are combatants. What the fuck are we even talking about? Ideological rebellion against the state alone does not terrorism make.

It does if you lose.

If Al Qaeda had toppled the government and institutes the global caliphate, then they wouldn’t be terrorists.

Yes. That's the defining difference to guerrilla warfare.

Not really. Check out IRA, Hezbollah, Tamil Tigers, etc.

Frequently military or government workers are the target.

In that case America's founding would be rooted in terrorism. Against the British monarchy, of course.

Yes; if they had lost the British government would've executed most of the American founding fathers.

And if they Nazis had won they would be cool, etc etc.

I don’t think your point is debated by anyone.

To oppose goverment, you need: * Mass support of folks that recognize you as government and not the "oppressive" government.

Simply stating that government is oppressive does not qualify. Do you actually recognize those people in this article? Are they opposing government on your behalf? Have you mandated them to oppose government... that you elected? Do you have judges that have different opinion on this case?

The whole discussion and article about this topic seems to be oblivious on these very basic legal issues.

What do you mean, the boomerang and expansion are the most common criticisms of all that "war on terror"?

Well, drug smuggling is a traditional part of inter empire warfare. Pump the population of the oppossing entity full with societal dissolvents then use the innet turmoil for an intervention

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