Your definitions keep changing, which is why they aren't reliable.
My definition hasn't changed since I learned it in Political Science eight years ago.
Using a fictional example, when Dukat and Damar captured a Klingon vessel and used it, was that terrorism?
If Gul Dukat intends to use the Bird of Prey to attack Klingon civilians and infrastructure, then yes. And he DOES seem apt to do this, since Kira repeatedly compares him to the Bajoran resistance, which she herself admits was a terrorist organization.
And I named several off the top of my head, speaking of the KIND of actions that he did. The fact that Hamas does not possess starships or technobabble planet-smashing weapons does not change the KINDS of actions they undertake.
You compare stealing candy with grand theft auto.
Stealing five thousand dollars worth of candy is still grand theft. And beating up a kid to steal his candy bar is the same kind of action as beating up an adult to steal his car.
Strapping a bomb to someone and blowing up a school bus is worlds different from destroying an entire planet and most of its species.
Not at all. If you have the kind of murderous intent that makes you willing to kill an entire race of people, it doesn't matter if you do it with a thousand small bombs or one freaking huge one. If you're willing to TRY to kill them all, then you're willing to SUCCEED.
For starters, Vulcans are set up as being absolutely logical as their shtick. But also, logic and rational behavior are things that humanity struggles with. We often resort to irrational behavior despite knowing what's logical. And before you say it, I mean things on a small personal scale, not destroying planets and billions of people.
Which has what to do with anything? Humans are NOT absolutely logical, nor are any of us trained in strict mental disciplines to control our emotions. More to the point, we're not from the planet Vulcan: we don't have green blood or pointed ears, we can't perform mind-melds by touching each other, we don't have lifespans of over two hundred years and we haven't as a race been exploring the galaxy for centuries. Specific to Spock, no human being alive has ever been a biracial person with an extra-terrestrial for a father or has had family members living on a totally different planet before.
There is nothing in Spock's experience that is in any way relatable.
Right?
So you think anger comes first and then the ideology.
In order of importance, not chronologically. Remember that bin Laden was Mujehadeen before he was Al Qaida. More broadly, the Viet-Cong was an organized popular militia before they (somewhat) degenerated into a booby trap delivery service.
They aren't out there just to start shit. It's just as I said earlier, they feel helpless in their situation and resort to terrorism because it has a far greater effect.
But it DOESN'T have greater effect, at least not in any way that could be connected with their political agenda. Terrorism is almost always counter-productive towards whatever end it seeks to achieve and political reform always happens IN SPITE of terrorist operations, not because of them.
The greater effect you speak of is the suffering, fear and death of those against whom the terrorists are directing their hatred. If helplessness is a factor at all, it's the desire to strike back against those who have MADE them helpless and prove that they are still relevant as a force. The political agenda attached to those actions is a post-hoc justification for it.
Let's be realistic here, just voting or rallying voters hardly changes anything. The greatest political changes are made by great acts of force, which is well established throughout world history. Terrorists know they have a far better chance of achieving their goals through illegal rather than legal means.
But terrorists DON'T have a greater chance of that. This is the difference between a terrorist and a revolutionary (as an example: between the Libyan Rebels and the Iraqi Insurgency), and the two terms are NOT interchangeable.
Nero is many things, but he is NOT a revolutionary.
Except Nero is not following any cue. He is the leader of this cause, and he should have a clear ideology.
He does. THE FEDERATION MUST BE DESTROYED. That's perfectly clear.
I don't think it's rational, logical, or well-adjusted, but some of the plans are clear and full of reason.
Not in terrorism, they're not. That is, again, the difference between the terrorist and the revolutionary. The former only uses reason insofar as his limited goal of causing destruction and mayhem. The latter applies the powers of reason to seek further goals, most specifically, for what to do AFTER victory has been achieved. Terrorists do not launch successful revolutions because they rarely think that far ahead and either have to transmute their movement into something else (and in doing so, retire the use of terrorist tactics) or cede power to someone who knows what they're doing.
It's not reasoning that we can usually agree with, but in many cases is at least understandable. I agree that the methods do make the difference though.
Let's be perfectly clear on this: the extent to which the reasoning of terrorists is "understandable" is the same sense as arsonists, serial killers or pedophiles. From a psychologists point of view, a basic thought process can be traced that leads you to figure out why they do the things they do and make predictions about what they're going to do next.
It is not understandable in the sense that that reasoning could be condoned, from any context, even by people who find themselves in the exact same situation.
As I said earlier, terrorism is a difficult thing to define, and that captrek and I would never come to a consensus. It's pretty clear that we won't either. In fact, there will never be a universal, objective definition of terrorism. It will always be subjective.
You're going for the "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" defense, which is UTTER BULLSHIT. Governments and propagandists can throw around whatever labels they want, but freedom fighters KNOW that they are not terrorists based on what they do and who they do it to; terrorists KNOW that they are terrorists for the same reason. No one is under any illusions that blowing up a restaurant in Tel Aviv constitutes an act of terrorism, not legitimate resistance against injustice. The train of thought that produces that effect may be understandable, but there's no subjective definition that makes it anything OTHER than terrorism.
As I said above, politics. It's a lot easier to cause change through terrorism than through more legal means.
No it isn't, because terrorism doesn't produce political change. Terrorism produces--and is MEANT to produce--destruction, death, and fear. It has never been anything but a hindrance to political progress, and on some level even terrorists know this.
Hudson was tired of seeing how the Cardassians operated, and he knew that he had no chance of changing the Federation's mind on the matter.
Sisko came to the exact same conclusion, if you'll recall. He agreed with Hudson that the situation was bad, and that the Cardassians were very much in the wrong, and that the Federation was just as much in the wrong and needed to be rebuked for it.
But Sisko didn't take his runabouts and start blowing up Cardassian supply depots on the sly. Clearly, the political agenda alone wasn't sufficient for that.
And as long as we're on the Maquis, they're a great example of why terrorism defies definition. Obviously the Cardassians thought they were terrorists, but many Bajorans considered them heroes, and the Federation just considered them rebels.
Actually, the Federation and the Bajorans
also considered them terrorists. The difference is the Bajorans are used to glorifying terrorists (especially terrorists who like to kill Cardassians) and the Federation considers terrorism to be a criminal as opposed to military offense.
Sure, he can't change what he experienced, but when time travel is involved he certainly could change the events of his past.
No, he can't change the events of HIS past, because they have already happened to them. Were he to change those events he would have never had a reason to pursue Spock in the first place, and therefore never would have undone those events in his past. The past cannot be changed, even allowing for time travel; if you WILL travel back in time then it follows that you HAVE traveled back in time and anything you might do in the past has already been done.
And that's before we take into account that Nero is no longer IN his past, nor can he travel back to the 24th century and pick up where he left off. As it stands now, with the destruction of the Kelvin and the new timeline brought into effect he has no way of knowing whether or not his wife will even be born in the new timeline.
With Star Trek and its myriad of methods of time travel
I didn't realize Nero was a Star Trek fan.
Instead he decides to dwell on it for 25 years and choose a path of destruction which as actually harder than one of repair.
Indeed. Much like real-world terrorists invariably do.
You need to go back and watch that episode again. Several characters refer to how powerful the weapons are and how deadly they can be.
Yes, POWERFUL. Much like a truckload of nitroglycerine will produce a fairly powerful explosion. But since a man with enough time on his hands can produce nitroglycerine in his basement, it doesn't qualify as "remarkable technology."
This is stupid. You can't deny a link between technology and firepower.
Nope. Just that greater firepower automatically implies greater technology. It doesn't. Narada has powerful weapons on board, but this alone does not suggest it is a "remarkable piece of technology." It is a simple mining vessel with a huge number of simple but powerful explosive devices.
We simply have a difference of opinion then. If I see a show where there is a serial killer, I want to know about his reasoning because he is not the norm.
Didn't enjoy The Dark Knight then?
Personally, I think Nero had the potential to be far more interesting than a lot of the other minor characters in the movie.
I'm sure he could. And when he gets his own movie, we'll see how well this pans out. But STXI wasn't Nero's movie, and he isn't worthy of that kind of focus.
If you mean World War II, that was hardly the effort of a group of individuals.
Never said it was. The ideology the Nazis possessed, however, was in no way incompatible with their coming to COMMAND those efforts and use them to further their own goals.
So there is nothing in an omnicidal mindset that is logically incompatible with running a government or a military. It happens all the time. On a mining vessel from a race that glorifies strength and aggression, it would only be that much easier.
And they fit under that whole category of serious reprisal that I referred to.
Again, not unlike Nero.
I'm fairly sure that if Bin Laden wanted access to nukes that he probably could have gotten it.
It's too bad you don't work for the CIA, then, because clearly you know more about bin Laden than they do. You probably could have caught him six years ago, right?
The Narada is hardly a simple mining vessel given its purported technology.
Welll goddamn, you even know more about the Narada than Nero does! Will wonders never cease?
I'm not the one arguing against a made up position.
