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pelastration
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What creates terrorists? Can a normal mental healthy person become a terrorist?
IMO it can. It all depends of the subjective or collective perception of injustice.
When someone feel treated with great injustice caused by other individuals or a group in power, by his own government or by occupying enemies, he can create the motives to react with violence and even go in hidden resistance (cf.. Secret White Army in Europe against German troops in WWII). Of course the holders of power will call such acts to be unlawful terrorist actions.
There can be many acts which can create deep feelings of injustice, but for sure heavy emotions are involved.
Of course such desperate people may organize themselves or influenced by people with more fanatic goals.
We have the right to protect our family, our ground and goods, our wealth, our religion, ... but in what degree? Where is the limit? Where is the trigger or threshold that upsets someone in such way that he takes the rights in his own hands (and also weapons)? Repeated and inhumane acts of injustice? As said this can be individual and/or collective. When religion is involved we see extra motives added, and growth of fanaticalness. We saw that in Northern Ireland (Catholics/Protestants), we see that in Israel/Palestine, we see that in guerrilla conflict in Russia (Chechnya), we see that now in Iraq, etc.
Now even interesting is to look what happens in USA on the right to bear weapons. This is significant. I refer to: http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/rightsof/arms.htm
Quote: In 1960, a law professor, Stuart Hays, first suggested that private ownership of guns was a privilege protected by the Second Amendment, and that prior court decisions tying it only to the militia had been mistaken. Hays asserted that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to own a gun, perhaps primarily for self-defense, but totally apart from any militia duty. He also argued that the amendment created a citizen "right of revolution," and that armed citizens could launch an armed revolt against a government they believed had acted in an unjust manner. Essentially, Hays seemed to be arguing that the real purpose of the Second Amendment was to preserve to future generations the right of rebellion against tyranny that had been exercised by the patriotic generation of the American Revolution.
The Hays article and the Kennedy assassination precipitated a continuing debate in the academy over the original and contemporary meaning of the Second Amendment, but more importantly, the constitutional debate was seized on by political groups who supported or opposed stronger gun control laws. Since then, the debate has raged between gun advocates defending their "constitutional right" to own firearms as opposed to those wanting to regulate gun ownership, and who deny there is any "right" involved at all.
... Some of the more militant gun advocates believe the real reason behind gun control laws is to disarm the citizenry, so that a despotic government can take over complete control and do away with all the rights of the people. Some such groups have organized themselves into modern-day "militias," and as such claim that the Second Amendment protects their activities fully.
The opposition bases its arguments on the thousands of people killed each year by guns, many of these deaths resulting from domestic disputes or accidents. They also point to the ease with which deranged persons can get weapons, such as the two teenage boys who on April 20, 1999, entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, with four guns.
...
Self-defense: Historically, so the argument goes, Americans have defended themselves, and, on the frontier, guns were essential to warding off attacks by Indians, rustlers, and other predators, both human and animal. In modern society, people ought to be able to protect themselves against robbery, rape, assault, and burglary. ..._
American Law Institute, Model Penal Code and Commentaries(1985) : A man may repel by force in defense of his person, habitation, or property, against one or many who manifestly intend . . . to commit a known felony on either. In such a case he is not obliged to retreat, but may pursue his adversary until he finds himself out of danger; and if, in a conflict between them, he happens to kill, such killing is justifiable. The right of self-defense in cases of this kind is founded on the law of nature; and is not, nor can be, superseded by any law of society.
_The Right of Revolution: As a nation born out of a revolution against its lawful king, and whose people are taught from infancy that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, the argument that the Second Amendment supports a right of revolution is not without attraction. More than a century ago, Lord Acton declared that "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," and the men who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights understood that concept perfectly, even if they had not heard of Acton's exact words. Any government, even a democratic one, tends to accumulate power, and in doing so will fight off any attempt to diminish that power. An unarmed citizenry will be unable to preserve its liberties when confronted by the powers of the government; an armed citizenry can and will resist, as did the colonists in 1776.
Today, the vast majority of the American people rely on the accepted methods of democracy to both influence and to limit government — the ballot box, political interest groups, a free press, and the courts. Very few Americans approve or sympathize with fringe groups who have declared the U. S. government a tyranny that must be resisted by force of arms. In fact, the only time in our history under the Constitution when citizens rebelled on a large scale was the Civil War, and very few will argue today that the South had a right of revolution. Indeed, the Constitution specifically gives the federal government the right and the power to suppress insurrections. (end of quote).
So the question remains: What is a terrorist? A lunatic, a person claiming his 'right of revolution' against a government of tyranny, a desperate person which sees no way of normal self-defense, ... what your idea?
IMO we have to look seriously to the arguments of people which claim injustice, and at the same time try to give them better conditions of life. I believe that - almost everyone - wants a normal life with as less as possible aggression. I don't believe someone goes Kamikaze for fun.
IMO it can. It all depends of the subjective or collective perception of injustice.
When someone feel treated with great injustice caused by other individuals or a group in power, by his own government or by occupying enemies, he can create the motives to react with violence and even go in hidden resistance (cf.. Secret White Army in Europe against German troops in WWII). Of course the holders of power will call such acts to be unlawful terrorist actions.
There can be many acts which can create deep feelings of injustice, but for sure heavy emotions are involved.
Of course such desperate people may organize themselves or influenced by people with more fanatic goals.
We have the right to protect our family, our ground and goods, our wealth, our religion, ... but in what degree? Where is the limit? Where is the trigger or threshold that upsets someone in such way that he takes the rights in his own hands (and also weapons)? Repeated and inhumane acts of injustice? As said this can be individual and/or collective. When religion is involved we see extra motives added, and growth of fanaticalness. We saw that in Northern Ireland (Catholics/Protestants), we see that in Israel/Palestine, we see that in guerrilla conflict in Russia (Chechnya), we see that now in Iraq, etc.
Now even interesting is to look what happens in USA on the right to bear weapons. This is significant. I refer to: http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/rightsof/arms.htm
Quote: In 1960, a law professor, Stuart Hays, first suggested that private ownership of guns was a privilege protected by the Second Amendment, and that prior court decisions tying it only to the militia had been mistaken. Hays asserted that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to own a gun, perhaps primarily for self-defense, but totally apart from any militia duty. He also argued that the amendment created a citizen "right of revolution," and that armed citizens could launch an armed revolt against a government they believed had acted in an unjust manner. Essentially, Hays seemed to be arguing that the real purpose of the Second Amendment was to preserve to future generations the right of rebellion against tyranny that had been exercised by the patriotic generation of the American Revolution.
The Hays article and the Kennedy assassination precipitated a continuing debate in the academy over the original and contemporary meaning of the Second Amendment, but more importantly, the constitutional debate was seized on by political groups who supported or opposed stronger gun control laws. Since then, the debate has raged between gun advocates defending their "constitutional right" to own firearms as opposed to those wanting to regulate gun ownership, and who deny there is any "right" involved at all.
... Some of the more militant gun advocates believe the real reason behind gun control laws is to disarm the citizenry, so that a despotic government can take over complete control and do away with all the rights of the people. Some such groups have organized themselves into modern-day "militias," and as such claim that the Second Amendment protects their activities fully.
The opposition bases its arguments on the thousands of people killed each year by guns, many of these deaths resulting from domestic disputes or accidents. They also point to the ease with which deranged persons can get weapons, such as the two teenage boys who on April 20, 1999, entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, with four guns.
...
Self-defense: Historically, so the argument goes, Americans have defended themselves, and, on the frontier, guns were essential to warding off attacks by Indians, rustlers, and other predators, both human and animal. In modern society, people ought to be able to protect themselves against robbery, rape, assault, and burglary. ..._
American Law Institute, Model Penal Code and Commentaries(1985) : A man may repel by force in defense of his person, habitation, or property, against one or many who manifestly intend . . . to commit a known felony on either. In such a case he is not obliged to retreat, but may pursue his adversary until he finds himself out of danger; and if, in a conflict between them, he happens to kill, such killing is justifiable. The right of self-defense in cases of this kind is founded on the law of nature; and is not, nor can be, superseded by any law of society.
_The Right of Revolution: As a nation born out of a revolution against its lawful king, and whose people are taught from infancy that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, the argument that the Second Amendment supports a right of revolution is not without attraction. More than a century ago, Lord Acton declared that "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," and the men who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights understood that concept perfectly, even if they had not heard of Acton's exact words. Any government, even a democratic one, tends to accumulate power, and in doing so will fight off any attempt to diminish that power. An unarmed citizenry will be unable to preserve its liberties when confronted by the powers of the government; an armed citizenry can and will resist, as did the colonists in 1776.
Today, the vast majority of the American people rely on the accepted methods of democracy to both influence and to limit government — the ballot box, political interest groups, a free press, and the courts. Very few Americans approve or sympathize with fringe groups who have declared the U. S. government a tyranny that must be resisted by force of arms. In fact, the only time in our history under the Constitution when citizens rebelled on a large scale was the Civil War, and very few will argue today that the South had a right of revolution. Indeed, the Constitution specifically gives the federal government the right and the power to suppress insurrections. (end of quote).
So the question remains: What is a terrorist? A lunatic, a person claiming his 'right of revolution' against a government of tyranny, a desperate person which sees no way of normal self-defense, ... what your idea?
IMO we have to look seriously to the arguments of people which claim injustice, and at the same time try to give them better conditions of life. I believe that - almost everyone - wants a normal life with as less as possible aggression. I don't believe someone goes Kamikaze for fun.
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