> We might agree on a few points but trying to clarify that the murder wasn't a terrorist attack, that it was just "unplanned murder with a vehicle", makes me want to re-examine my opinions on the points where we agree.
Are we going to call every road rage incident (1200/year in the US) a terrorist attack now? Please.
I'd encourage you to evaluate your agreement with each of my points on an individual basis; each idea either stands or falls on its own.
Would you please stop? This subthread has gone way over the uncivil/unsubstantive line and you've been fuelling this in other places as well.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032418 and marked it off-topic.
I apologize. I wasn't aware I was being uncivil, nor was I attempting to troll or fuel an argument unproductively. I've signed out of my HN account.
This wasn't roadrage, it was murder. Now get off your fake high horse, you don't get to claim the moral highground on account of a bunch of people that would like to do the same to a fairly large number of people. Think of that one murder as a free sample of what is to come if these people get their way.
> This wasn't roadrage, it was murder. Now get off your fake high horse
I'm attempting to prevent the cheapening of the term "terrorism", not adjusting my positioning on my high horse. Its a hate crime, not terrorism.
> Think of that one murder as a free sample of what is to come if these people get their way.
More of this will come regardless if these people get their way. Protests, tweet storms, and tearing down Confederate monuments will not dissuade hate. The only way to win is to drag the argument into the daylight where it can be fought.
> I'm attempting to prevent the cheapening of the term "terrorism", not adjusting my positioning on my high horse. Its a hate crime, not terrorism.
I didn't use the word terrorism in my response to you so no need to bring it back into circulation, I've used your terms. The word terrorism (and terrorist) has already been cheapened beyond recognition, they're in a worse state than 'hacker', where were you the last 15 years or so?
> Its a hate crime, not terrorism.
I'm not sure that it's any more or less 'terrorism' than the vehicular attacks by Islamists in Europe. How would you describe those?
> How would you describe those?
Premeditated violent acts designed to strike fear into the local populace. Far different then an angry protestor getting in his car to hit other protestors. I would even go so far as to say that most people will continue to think they're safe as long as they're not at a protest (whereas Islamic terrorists in Europe want everyone to feel unsafe everywhere, all the time).
The act in question was rage plain and simple, not an act designed to spread fear. Terrorism, by definition, is a violent act designed to express and spread terror in a populace, therefore I don't believe it warrants that definition.
If you really insist on continuing to want to split this hair consider the possibility that the act of driving that car into a crowd of protestors was to send a message of what could happen to people that take part in counter protests to Neo Nazis. There, that fits your description of terrorism.
Now of course we can't know if that's true but at the same time your 'roadrage' argument is ridiculous. Roadrage had less to do with this than it has to do with terrorism.
That is possible, but far from known. toomuchtodo is trying to make the most accurate assessment possible based from apparent facts.
> That is possible, but far from known.
Agreed.
> toomuchtodo is trying to make the most accurate assessment possible based from apparent facts.
No, he's trying to reclass a murder as an incident of roadrage. When you drive a car into a crowd at high speed that transcends mere anger, that's murder and in this particular case the perpetrator is someone who deliberately came to a protest of a lot of people who are on the record as wanting to engage in acts of violence. So when they then do engage in those acts it is no longer simple anger.
Simple anger would be if a visitor to a bar would do something like this after being thrown out of a bar. Trying to recast this whole thing as a simple case of an angry protestor at some otherwise peaceful protest is significantly changing the story.
> No, he's trying to reclass a murder as an incident of roadrage.
Do not put words in my mouth. I never said it wasn't murder. I said it was not an act of terrorism. Road rage can end in murder. It does not become a terrorist act.
> Do not put words in my mouth. I never said it wasn't murder.
Here is your comment from upthread:
> Are we going to call every road rage incident (1200/year in the US) a terrorist attack now?
From: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032455
Which has your name affixed to it.
So you are trying to equate this murder to one similar to roadrage, and they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. This person meant to do bodily harm to many others and/or to kill them outright because they were counter protesting his happy family friendly outing with his Neo Nazi buddies. To try to equate this to roadrage is ridiculous.
> Road rage can end in murder.
Yes it can, but this wasn't roadrage.
> It does not become a terrorist act.
Indeed, roadrage does not become a terrorist act. But again, this wasn't roadrage.
Here is the definition of roadrage for you:
"sudden violent anger provoked in a motorist by the actions of another driver."
It does not include protesters in groups advocating violence against others going to their cars and subsequently purposefully ramming those cars into crowds of defenseless pedestrians.
I've made my position clear. It was murder. It was not a terrorist act.
Apparently I conflated toomuchtodo's posts with someone else that did call the suspect a murderer. The "violence intended to further a political goal by terrorizing a significant portion of the populace" is up for debate, but yeah, the murder in question is waaaay closer to that than it is to what toomuchtodo is saying.
edit: toomuchtodo's sibling comment is certainly relevant. Nuance is hard!
In all fairness, somebody has to split that hair in order to charge him with murder. Looks like prosecutors have decided on second degree for now.
Sure. Note that in many countries acts of terrorism are also simply classed as murder or whatever the end result of the act of terrorism was, there is no specific 'terrorism' section in many bodies of law.
And I personally prefer it that way.
The Barcelona van attack that just happened an hour ago is an example of a vehicular terrorist attack:
https://www.reddit.com/live/zgbfbqqsl4h4
What evidence are you using to infer the motive?
Weird. I thought Jeff Sessions and the justice department suggested it could be both.
Did I miss something?
He wasn't stuck in traffic or being chased by a tailgater or forced off the road.
He got into his car. He started it. He pointed it towards a group of pedestrians. He accelerated into them.
This is factually identical to attacks in Stockholm and elsewhere which have been called acts of terrorism.
> Are we going to call every road rage incident (1200/year in the US) a terrorist attack now?
No, just like the fact that we call some attacks with guns terrorism doesn't mean every incident in which a firearm is discharged is terrorism.
The weapon used isn't what makes it terrorism.