A battle of semantics

[LowerCaseRepublican]

I was reading part of the PATRIOT Act (for a class in Crises of Political Tolerance) and part of it struck me and I had to read it a few times over.

 

One of the definitions of "terrorism" in the document is the following:

`(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

`(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

`(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping

 

Now, I know I am going to get flamed for this but this definition fits so much of US policy right now.

 

From Cheney's statement that was an inuendo that a vote for Kerry means we'll get hit with more terror attacks to previous Congressmen saying a vote against Bush is a vote for bin Laden...this definition is quite open ended and could quite easily be applied to US domestic policy and foreign policy as well as the policy of many other states.

 

And who is to say what is intimidating and what's not? It could be that a mass gathering of hundreds of thousands of people peacefully could be perceived as "intimidating" and therefore they would be "terrorists" by this definition? Intimidation and coercion of a population is so broad...they could use the draconian measures of the bill punishment wise to apply to any criminal or group of people that they believe is a threat to power and therefore intimidating (even if the group is non-violent). It's an interesting thing that I wanted to bring to peoples' attention.