this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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The cars suck, but he's right that the company hasn't done anything to deserve this. He's the one who chose to make himself the face of Tesla, though, so however people feel about him, they'll feel about any business he owns.
Terrorism, though? Hardly. It's protest. He's the one doing terrorism by dismantling the government.
Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature
Pretty much the definition of terrorism. Doesn't necessarily make it wrong.
That's what was so terrifying about the Patriot Act for so long.
Gonna disagree with the anarchist viewpoint because physical damage to inanimate objects can still cause PTSD, battered spouse syndrome with enough incidents over time, etc. It's the threat of danger that matters.
Just because it doesn't fit your ideological view doesn't mean people are lying by looking at it differently
Yep the idea of terrorism bad is honestly kinda overly simple. Can it be bad? Sure especially if you don't have a specific target but well the IRA, American Revolutionaries, and Zapatistas have shown that there is a good way to go about it. The term of the day is damage minimization.
Surprisingly, Star Wars is a great example of this. A rinky dink political group (rebels) blowing up a military installation (death star) is terrorism. That does not mean the action was unjustified.
It's not terrorism if it's war.
Terrorism that succeeds is called revolution.
Yep. Nobody (okay, very few people) want to burn Teslas, or make car bombs, or dress up as indians and throw a shipment of tea into the Boston harbor, but when you live in a state where the government is no longer governing for the people (even if the people knowingly, or unknowingly selected that government), ignores it's citizens or even actively harms them, then you don't have much choice. You have to defend yourself.
Every definition that I can find says it is but maybe you'd like to provide one that says otherwise.
Its an Anarchist thing, you wouldn't get it.
Super simple version?
Violence is defined by the state in such a way that it binds the actions of its subjects, but exempts the actions of itself/its agents.
Look up 'systemic violence' or 'stochastic terrorism' and you can begin to see how it becomes harder to draw very clear lines than you seem to think is.
Lets go with your definition that violence includes acts against property.
Ok... are... taxes violence?
Is it violent to threaten you with immediate arrest if found operating a car without a valid liscense?
Howabout valid insurance?
Is civil asset forfeiture violence?
Is emminent domain violence?
Howabout clearing a homeless encampment, destroying all their belongings?
Is that violent?
Is it violent to, either intentionally or unintentionally... crash the stock market and knock about 20% off of the value of 401ks of the majority of the population?
Reminder that involuntary assault and involuntary murder / manslaughter... are violent crimes.
... The most basic definition of what a State is, is "a formalized group that has the 'legitimate' monopoly of the use of force (violence) within a defined geographic area."
So you don't have one? Glad we sorted that.
Oh, are you asking me, personally, for a definition of violence, just flat out, with no context?
I'd say violence is anything that causes unnecessary suffering to a living being, or significant damage to a nonliving thing.
What exactly do I mean by that?
Well, its quite context dependent.
Is burning down a Tesla dealership violent?
Sure!
Is a lesser act of violence in pursuit of a reduction of much, much greater violence justifiable?
Again, context matters, but generally speaking, the world is built upon violence, people just disagree about when it is justified.
If a man has pummeled you with hammer blows, you'd be justified in doing some violence back to him to get him to stop.
If a cartoon supervillain has become either the most or second most poweful man in the world, he has a history of and declared intention to commit mass systemic violence against hundreds of millions of people... and burning down some of his shittily designed and built self-immolating cars stands a good chance at knocking him, his grip on the minds of his idiot sycophants, and his overall level of power and influence down a peg?
When there are no 'legitimate' means that will effectively do this, effectively lessen his capacity to do violence against millions?
When this harms only things directly, and not people? When those things are overpriced luxury items?
Well, I'd rather not keep taking the hammer blows.
If you've got a more peaceful way to stop the hammering, I'd love to hear it... but my bones are breaking.
No I asked for a definition that doesn't include property damage.
Glad we cleared that up.
Well you accused me of whataboutism, so I explained how... yeah you could see it that way if you only look at the surface, but it's really a way of illustrating a more complex idea.
And well, here you go again, attempting to distill everything into neat, simple little boxes.
Twice now I quite literally explained to you how context is important in ... you know, definitions, which literally are a network of syntactic associations that are context... and now you've selectively replied by removing all of the context I gave.
So uh, yes, I'm glad we've cleared up that you are definitionally a simpleton, only insterested in very surface level, simple understandings of things.
When the person that started this thread said 'property damage is not violence', they likely (I can't read minds, but I've got a hunch) meant that property damage is not of the same magnitude of severity, does not or should not be judged by the same set of standards as violence directly against a person, that the entirety of a scenario involving violence should be considered when assessing it.
IE, they're using shorthand, and I attempted to unpack some of that shorthand for you.
Sort of like how the colloquial definition of 'theft' generally includes shoplifting, but generally excludes wage theft by employers, despite wage theft being of considerably greater monetary magnitude than shrink loss.
If you want 'a definition' of violence that doesn't include property damage, here you go:
Violence is any act that causes direct harm to a thing capable of suffering.
Now you can point out how that's a flawed definition, and I will redirect you to my comments on your own flawed and favored definition of terrorism from the FBI, and my own previous attempts at better defining violence, and then maybe we can have the actually interesting conversation about violence and property that you've thus far done your damndest to avoid.
I didn't need any of that explained to me. I understand and agree. I'm trying to have a discussion about what is or is not terrorism while you're trying to argue about whether the violence/terrorism is justified. I said in my original reply that it "Doesn't necessarily make it wrong."
After reading through the thread I did the same thing.
If you read what they're saying, they made a pretty good argument for why the definition of violence can include property damage.
You can stick your head in the sand all you want, but only reading answers that match your opinion is a good way to go insane.
Yes, but that definition also defines... basically all the most heinous things that Trump and those around him have done in the last... 5 years, lets say? ... as terrorism.
Remember CPAC, 2022?
... kinda speaks for itself.
You can make that argument but you're not arguing that burning down a Tesla dealership isn't terrorism, you're just making a whataboutism.
Yes, that is basically what I am doing.
Was that not clear?
I am attempting to point out the given definition of terrorism is quite broad, and easily interpreted subjectively depending on your biases.
Burn down a Tesla dealership?
Terrorism.
Boston Tea Party?
Terrorism.
Jan 6th?
Terrorism.
Bay of Pigs Invasion?
Terrorism, more technically 'State Terrorism'.
Many, many acts of resistance groups in German occupied Europe during WW2?
Also Terrorism.
Order an extrajudicial assasination? Order or carry out mass arrests without proper warrants or authority?
Plant false evidence or fabricate some kind of 'suspicious behavior' to justify an arrest or detainment or use of force or conviction, motivated by a political/religious/ethic/etc bias?
Again, Terrorism, though more specifically that is 'State Terrorism'.
Saying "I am going to kill [very important political figure]"?
Terrorism.
Pilot a ship on the sea to harass dragnet fishing boats or whalers?
Terrorism.
Any protest group that has 'illegally' gathered in an area or building without a permit, where a single person threw a punch or resisted arrest?
Again, also terrorism.
... All of these things either are or could easily be interpreted to be both violent and criminal acts, with either a motivation or desired effect being biased toward some specific group of people.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terrorism
You may note that precisely defining terrorism is actually somewhat difficult, as indicated by the wide range of different definitions used by different groups and at different times, and is actually the subject of a whole lot of academic and legal debate and disagreement, with slight but very significant differences over time and place/jurisdiction.
There we go, hahah!
Rather it is vandalism, because Terrorism, its acts cause terror in the population.
nobody is terrified, except for billionaires, like crybaby musk.
I don't understand what you wrote but the two are not mutually exclusive.
And yet they're different things in this context anyways.
Spraypaint a traffic camera, violence.
So what I'm hearing is, if you burn Tesla because their CEO is a scum-sucking useless billionaire who is dismantling the social services that you and your family rely on (and paid for!), in order to cut taxes for the 1%, you're a terrorist.
If you set shit on fire because you like to watch stuff burn, you're just a plain ol' arsonist.
Not sure why some people are disagreeing - it for sure fits the definition. I'm not exactly sad about it - Musk is helping to rip apart the country and I have a hard time blaming people who feel that helping to rip apart one of his companies is about all they can do - but committing arson to further an ideology is terrorism.
They don't like the connotation. Which is fair. Nuance is hard and if you say "yes, we're terrorists" there's no way that's not going to be wielded against "your people" in the court of public opinion.
But facts are facts.
With this definition, a government can do anything it wants without it being terrorism because it gets to decide what's criminal. So while it may be terrorism by definition, that definition is pretty useless without a lot of context.
The cars are poorly designed to the point of being dangerous. They deserve it a little.
This is terrorism. Storming the capitol is clearly not.