Agit8r
Gold Member
- Dec 4, 2010
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So, why did the southern states elect terrorist governments?
....
It is quite simply because a majority of voters in the South in the 50s and 60s were terrorism-supporting racists.
Oh, Lord. That sort of highly charged language is a meaningful part of why political discussions are so often so frustratingly ineffectual. I'm quite sure that what folks, even the racists, were supporting was racism and its continuance as a mode of construing the merit of white folks over that of black folks on the basis of skin color, but I can't find any basis for thinking those folks supported terrorism.
They certainly used what today we'd call terrorist tactics. Using those tactics and supporting terrorism itself are not the same things. There isn't even an agreed-upon definition of what terrorism is, so how can one even support it when one and others don't even agree on what constitutes terrorism? When "the other guy" does "it," it's terrorism. When "we" do "it," it's defending ourselves.
Let's not kid ourselves. When it comes to what anyone deems to be or not be terrorism, the defining factor in determining which an act (set of acts) is depends not on what was done, but on who did it and who's remarking on the act and actors. That's so re: the racial atrocities in the U.S. as well as re: the religiously driven atrocities around the world in more modern times. All of those acts have driven by one or another not incontrovertibly valid/accurate belief or belief system. They are driven by folks being, in their own minds, infallibly sure they are right and "the other guy" is wrong.
How then can there be any appropriate use of the word "terrorism"?