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Comment by JuniperMesos | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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