We were having a debate that got off- tangent in Role Playing, So I thought we could continue it here.
The Thought Police are going to be after me for my thoughtcrime. I know it! I must hide even though Big Brother is watching me. (This is more true then you could possibly know) Since newspeak is all I pretty much have to work with and anything that might contain oldspeak is long since gone from my household, I don't have much of a choice but use a reference that the author may have been politcal/religiously motivated to write about. Since the dictionary is something we can all find and see what better reference to use to in defence of our statement then a definition I decided to use that no one else will have access to. With that being said...
I sincerely apologize for stealing the thread's main topic of in game ethics, and going deeper into what exactly constitutes terrorism. I can get carried away with a side topic and take it to the exterme. That said if we want to continue and decided what the definition of a terrorist is and a good term for a rebel that is fighting a curropt government, then we should start a new thread. Other than that, let's carry on! Cheers mates.
My point is that one should not feel constrained by the Dictionary deffinition as even Websters can be wrong. (in matters of Political/belief definition)
A Cat is always a Cat
but The deffinition of Terroism is a definition that is politicaly charged, has plenty of disagreement, and is at the same time, VERY important.
We need a word that defines the targeted and intentional murder of non-combatants for reasons of evoking an emotional impact that would lead to political change.
I think that rather than invent a NEW word, we pull "Terroism" away from its Thersaurus brothers and make it a Unique word that means THIS ONE THING.
Destrucition of Property, Gurellia Warfare, etc... All can be adressed by diffrent terms.
Let us make "Terroism" a specific word that means a specific thing.
and YES by wishing it we can make it so, because a guiding force in the shaping of things like definition, is USAGE. Use the word "Terroism" as a specific term and eventualy that usage will be recognised and applied