Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Those With No Valid Argument Quibble Over Semantics

Why does any one give a flying fruitcake about whether a heinous act is labeled “terrorism,” “ murder,” or given some other descriptive term? Is it so the hate mongers can contrive something nefarious that they read between the lines and create conspiracy theories that have no basis in reality?

Comment 1: Loren M. Lambert -Yes, since definitions and words matter I have learned that your definition and that of right-wing critics of an “activist judge,” is any judge that makes a decision that is contrary to your or their personal beliefs. Your personal beliefs are not, “our founding principles.”

Mark, with all due respect, you should take a class on constitutional law from a reputable college or law school. You will there learn that all Supreme Court justices make decisions based upon “our founding principles,” and most of them have solid reason and rational linked to the Constitution to do so. You have no understanding whatsoever of how constitutional disputes arise because of the general language and provisions of the Constitution and how those issues are resolved. If I am wrong, describe for me how constitutional issues are presented to the court and how they are determined. Why don’t you do so using Brown vs Board of Education and Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). Then we can discuss this in a more rational manner. Good luck.

Moreover, the term “a terrorist act,” is not and has never been synonymous among Professors, Historians, Academics, Scholars, Dictionary publishers, and Diplomats with, “radical militant Islamist terrorism.” That is a ridiculous conflation. It would mean that any time anyone ever says that “a terrorist act,” has been committed it must irrefutably be interpreted to mean a violent act committed by an Islamist group and thereby excludes from the definition terrorist acts committed by the ETA, the IRA, the Ku Klux Klan, the Sandinista Liberation Front, the Black Panthers, the Red Berets, the Black September Group, or an enraged mob, and so on and so forth.

Your and other right wing polemicists’ fixation on what the Libya attacks were called sheds no light on nor does it clarify in any manner whatsoever what happened, who was responsible, and how it should be dealt with. Nor does it indicate why such a breach of national security occurred. While I can agree that, that information is important, it is patently preposterous that the specific term used to describe what happened, as long as it bears some resemblance to the actions that occurred on that day, is some how illustrative on these important questions. That is the only thing that is important--what happened, why, who is to blame, and what must be done to prevent it from happening again, and if the American people, including you, determine that it is an event that makes Pres. Obama unfit to serve and thereby makes Mitt Romney a better choice than so be it. But to muddy the waters with arguments about what label to give it, is pointless.

Loren M. Lambert © October 28, 2012

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