Since you’re being pedantic, I shall also be pedantic.
having the character of synonyms or a synonym; equivalent in meaning; expressing or implying the same idea.
“Homicide” and “murder” are not equivalent in meaning (because “murder” is a more specific kind of “homicide”), and, as I stated earlier, they do not express or imply the same idea. A homicide is when one person, for any reason, kills another person; a murder is when one does so intentionally.
On that note: some people use the word “synonym” to mean “a word with exactly the same meaning,” others use it to mean “a word with a similar meaning.” The people who are arguing with you probably aren’t arguing with your definition of “homicide” or “murder” - they’re probably arguing with your definition of “synonym.” When dictionaries list synonyms, they generally list any word with a similar meaning, which probably reaches beyond what many would consider an actual synonym.
This pedantic aside is rather silly though, ISIS are clearly terrorists and murderers. Calling them terrorists doesn’t legitimise them in any way, being a terrorist isn’t a positive attribute, it is a fact though.
The problem is that we shouldn’t be reacting any different to “terrorist” than we should to “murderer.” If we infringe upon civil rights and discriminate against people based on their race and their religion, then the “terrorists” have been successful in their attacks, in that they’ve forced us to change our way of life.
I don’t think many people are arguing that it isn’t an accurate label; they’re arguing that it isn’t a productive label.
If we just call them all “murderers,” and treat them as we would any other murderer, then they will have failed to strike terror into our hearts, which means they will have failed at their terrorism, and isn’t that what we want?
However calling them terrorists has enormous implications for how the US specifically interacts with them. For example, drone killings–we cannot target a foreign manslaughterer with a drone; a foreign murderer with a drone; but apparently we can with a terrorist. It may seem like a distinction without a difference… Until you start looking at the capabilities we can deploy against each category.
I don’t want any more drone killings. I don’t want any more rendition. I want these assholes in jail after a fair trial, with a fair sentence (not gitmo)–and using terrorism as the label for these people means that won’t happen.
Of course we should be reacting differently to terrorists than murderers, because they are very different activities that require very different solutions.
That we shouldn’t respond to terrorism with infringements of civil rights and bigotry has nothing to do with that.
If someone murders someone else, we should take action to bring that person to justice.
If they are doing so as part of a larger criminal organization, we should take action to shut that organization down, and attempt to bring the leaders of that organization to justice.
If many people are doing so as part of a larger social problem, we should be taking steps to address the root causes of that larger social problem.
If their methods exploit loopholes in our laws, we should be taking action to close those loopholes, while making sure that ordinary citizens are affected by those legislative changes as little as possible.
I fail to see how any of that changes when you slap the label “terrorist” on a person, except to build up hysteria and make people more amenable to having their civil rights violated.
If someone commits murder as part of a larger criminal organization, we call it organised crime. If someone commits murder as part of a larger political organization, we call it terrorism.
Solving the social causes of organised crime is relatively simple compared to terrorism, organised crime doesn’t have fundamental ideological principles and geopolitical factors that also need to be overcome.
Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that the problem is as simple as something like organised crime doesn’t help, you need to fully understand something to come up with a solution, and understanding involves recognising and categorising things.
From where I sit, it’s when we try to stick our heads in and start trying to solve the “fundamental ideological principles and geopolitical factors” that we end up making things worse.
It’s really also when we act like we know what’s best for somebody else. Nobody likes that.
Constantine had this nailed centuries ago. Either you murder all the men and make a whole new generation of kids that are ‘your’ people and take over the whole region…or you keep the fuck away so nobody’s seeing you as somebody to screw with.
I’m obviously of the latter school…but the point is that the half-assed approach just creates terrorists.
I said: “you need to fully understand something to come up with a solution”. When people stick their heads in without doing this bit first it tends not to end so well.
You disagreeing with what is written in dictionaries regarding murder as a synonym for homicide shows you are not concerned with rules and details for learning and academic discourse.
I like words–one word that should not be used to describe a terrorist group is the name of the African goddess “Isis.” Let’s call another homicidal/murdering terrorist group “Jesus”
Synonyms of Pendatic with use in following sentence
Let’s not malign perfectly good John Waters films, now.
Because it’s about different kinds of strategies to delegimitize these people and what they are doing, mainly to Muslims who refuse to conform to their notions of Islam? Given what they’re doing to people in their way, I personally don’t feel the need to give them any sort of respect. I also don’t think that, at the least the Muslims I know, feel that Daesh has any sort of legitimacy to be speaking as Muslims for the Umma.
I think I can agree with this statement.
But, sadly, like many of these threads that have anything to do with either Islam or the current situation in the middle east, has devolved into some nastiness…
[ETA] I’m really confused about why what we call these guys is such a huge deal, BTW. I can understand the position about NOT using ISIS, because some people still embrace her as a goddess. Fair enough. But why is that such a controversial point in the first place? Is it really so necessary to call them ISIS that some would refuse to call them something else? If so, why?
I like this post of yours, terrorists like Daesh are murderers–and Daesh is a murdering terrorist organization.
Isis is a mythical African goddess who represents fertility, motherhood, protection, love, everlasting devotion and intelligence–she was worshipped as the feminine archetype of creation. Daesh has nothing in common with these characteristics and attributes.
I am talking about the name of the African goddess Isis being used as a acronym for a terrorist organization.
What would be the response if Muslims in the Middle East took the name of a terrorist organization and formed a acronym using that name to identify that terrorist organization as Jesus?
Not only that, but Daesh is going to create it’s own set of problems for other people!
It’s not sounded like it’s spelled. People already are mentioning online that they think it’s pronounced ‘Dash’, which is actually a name that’s not uncommon these days (cracked the top 1000 recently!) Cate Blanchett and Alice Cooper both have named their sons Dash…and of course that means that tons of fans and such have followed suit. Leaving a bunch of people with that as their name.
Of course, only a few crazy idiots would actually be confused by such a thing…and really the goddess issue isn’t nearly as important as all the girls named Isis (which apparently our one-issue friend could care less about)…but who’s thinking of the children here?
Apparently somebody wants to throw a bunch of new kids under the bus not to save some old kids, but because of a goddess that NOBODY IS CONFUSED ABOUT.
But again, that’s what you get from trollies, right? I’m starting to wonder if she’s at all serious about the issue…she may just be somebody who doesn’t care at all who gets off on people arguing with her. (or him. It could be a fat guy in mom’s basement doing all this)
Indeed. So we should stay away from those regions until we have a reasonable, viable plan to dismantle these organizations, and prevent future ones from replacing them and attacking us.
(In my opinion, “staying away from those regions” is probably the biggest step we can take to prevent future organizations from popping up and wanting to attack us, but that’s a different argument.)
You know what doesn’t help with that?
Giving them the dramatic label of “terrorist.” “Terrorism” is a problem that needs to be solved now. Yesterday, if not sooner. Don’t think: act, and destroy these enemies that are trying to terrorize us. It can’t wait for viable, well-thought-out plans: we need to bomb these terrorists into sand today.
If we just call them “murderers,” however, the problem appears much less urgent, and we can deal with it rationally, taking the time we need to implement a lasting solution.
If there is no argument or debate, then just how do you suppose people compile dictionaries? There is a huge amount of discussion over these things when dictionaries are made, and I think it would be naive to assume that such issues magically disappear once a volume is published.
