• @Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world
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    221 hours ago

    Not necessarily. Not unless they’re trying to force an ideology.

    If I threaten to kill you because I plainly don’t like you, that’s not really making me a terrorist.

    • WrenM
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      -321 hours ago

      If you threaten to kill someone, you are using terror to manipulate them into being fearful.

      A death threat because you don’t like someone is still an intention to instill fear in someone. So yes. You’d be a terrorist.

      By definition: terrorism is the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to instill fear, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological goals. Killing someone out of hate is an ideological goal.

      • Sorry, that just doesn’t follow the actual definition of terrorism. Remove the comma, and “often” and we’re real closer.

        Literally the first result on Google From wiki:

        Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims.[1]

        Not every murderer is a terrorist.

        • WrenM
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          11 minute ago

          If their victim died in terror, yes. They are.

      • @thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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        217 hours ago

        Killing someone out of hate is an ideological goal.

        In most cases, no. All hate is not ideological hate, and most killings are not ideological either. Most of the violence we see in the world is due to people’s personal relationships with each other, or are the result of some spontaneous fight.

        The problem with what you’re doing here is you’re diluting the meaning of the word “terrorism”. You wrote out the definition, but you don’t seem to understand it. The key element is that terrorism is not just instilling fear, but using that fear to obtain political or ideological goals.

        If instilling fear is sufficient to make someone a terrorist, any violent criminal or anyone threatening others becomes a terrorist, and the word loses its meaning.