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In America, Rescuing a Piglet Makes You a Terrorist but Shooting Up a Concert Doesn't

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday October 12 2017, @07:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the oink-I-say dept.

CoolHand writes:

Newsweek has this article on America's skewed definition of terrorism:

What is terrorism? According to the FBI, animal activists who stole two piglets from a farm were terrorists. As of now, Stephen Paddock, who killed 58 people at a country music concert in Las Vegas two weeks ago, has not been labeled a terrorist by the federal security organization.

In a viral story posted on The Intercept, journalist Glenn Greenwald details an account of federal agents investigating animal activists and scouring farm-animal sanctuaries to find two missing piglets that allegedly had been stolen from a farm. The FBI devoted such resources to finding these two piglets because their alleged theft and the capturing of undercover videos of the farm's conditions count as terrorism.

Why is the piglet theft classified as terrorism, but not the Las Vegas shooting? The distinction is rooted in the definition of the term. In spite of the emotions the word "terrorist" might elicit, the definition is not "mass killer" or "Muslim extremist" or "very bad person." The legal definition of terrorism is "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property in order to coerce or intimidate a government or the civilian population in furtherance of political or social objectives."

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday October 12 2017, @07:08PM (3 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday October 12 2017, @07:08PM (#581295) Journal

    Oh, great! Soon SoylentNews is going to be infested with Grammar Terrorists! Posters will live in fear of spelling and grammar mistakes! They will be afraid that some middle school teacher will take their piglets! But at least they will be gluten-free. The one thing I could never stomach about Grammar Nazis was all the gluten. They would post, in their snide and arrogant way, "Gluten Tag!" all the time. Nazis.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 12 2017, @09:33PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday October 12 2017, @09:33PM (#581357) Journal

    "Soon SoylentNews is going to be infested with Grammar Terrorists! Posters will live in fear of spelling and grammar mistakes"

    That future is already here. @wonkey_monkey. :-)

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 13 2017, @02:13AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 13 2017, @02:13AM (#581508) Journal

    They would post, in their snide and arrogant way, "Gluten Tag!" all the time. Nazis.

    Shouldn't that be in modern Twitter orthography? Like #gluten!

    When do you think you are, you insensitive clod, in antiquity times?
    Who the hell has the time nowadays to type - much less to think about - some extra 4 characters?
    Not to mention the 140/280 limit. What? You reckon anyone cares about books anymore? Today, you don't tweet, you don't exist.

    (grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday October 13 2017, @02:17AM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday October 13 2017, @02:17AM (#581513) Journal

    But at least they will be gluten-free. The one thing I could never stomach about Grammar Nazis was all the gluten. They would post, in their snide and arrogant way, "Gluten Tag!" all the time. Nazis.

    Gosh, this made me snort. And I had to log in just to thank you for that nonsense. Don't ever change, Aristarchus.