Texas Schools Teaching Boston Tea Party As Terrorist Act, page 1

Originally posted by lee anoma

Originally posted by Snoil
The Boston Tea Party was a covert, asymmetric, revolutionary action. But it was economic warfare, and didn't involve killing. So is it terroism? No, it wasn't conceived to induce terror.

It was a revolutionary act to those involved and those that benefited from it.
It was an act of terror to the established government and under the very definition.

I think that is the complicated point the school is trying to make. It's trying to remove the students from a subjective point of view and force them to see certain issues in a more complex way.

It's a very difficult lesson to even try to get across to anyone.

Check this out:

"Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” -FBI.gov

You don't have to kill someone, or plan to kill someone, in order to commit a terrorist act.

It is all a matter of perspective, and just about any revolutionary act can be considered a terrorist one because they all fall under the definition. Certainly by the government they fought against.

Whether we like it or not this is true.

Now that isn't to say that some of those acts weren't done with nobler intentions, but any of those acts regardless of the reasons behind them, can fall under the definition of terrorism.

What the school is doing, and I am surprised that it is to be honest, is playing on the concept of terrorism as being subjective in order to challenge the students who like most people already have a preconceived notion/idea cemented in their minds regarding what a terrorist looks like and what their goals are.

Let's take Republican Peter King for example.
Here is a man that is a serious counter-terrorism advocate...but supports the IRA.

How is this possible?
He doesn't consider them terrorists.

Peter King, IRA supporter and enthusiastic counter-terrorism advocate

"The British government is a murder machine," King said. He described the IRA, which mastered the car bomb as an instrument of urban terror, as a "legitimate force." And he compared Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, to George Washington.

But King sees no parallel between the IRA and violent Islamist extremism, which he describes as a foreign enemy or a foreign-directed enemy. His preferred comparison for the IRA is with the African National Congress led by Nelson Mandela; the IRA, no less than the ANC's military wing, was fighting for community rights and freedom, he says.

WashPost

These days terrorism is synonymous with some Muslim fundamentalist group from the middle-east blowing up civilian targets simply because they hate freedom.

The category is much more broad however.

Those men involved in the Boston Tea Party would say themselves that they were declaring their independence from tyrannical rule in order to establish a better way of life or fighting against a villainous force out to make all men slaves to a certain system, but guess what?

So do all the other terrorists.

- Lee

Your own words 'It's a matter of perspective'. I don't think I said anything to imply the Tea Party could not be seen that way - what I did was give reasons why I didn't.

If one wants to denote all asymmetric warfare as terroism, I can disagree and still understand the other side of the coin.

Re-Writing History ? Who Benefits this time?

Re-Writing History ?

Who Benefits this time?