Mark Williamson wrote:
If the usage of the words "terrorism" and "terrorist" is NPOV (which has been decided through polls on en.wiki - since when is something NPOV if more than 1/3rd of those polled say it isn't? lol), then so is the usage of "vigilante".
If such a result exists it would reflect the ravings of a self-appointed clique of POV pushers. Such polls are held with such regularity and frequency that it is impossible to isolate those which have real meaning. If a person isn't directly active in the affected areas the polls will go by unnoticed. If you are suggesting that the rest of us who were not previously aware of the vote should now go to cast our ballot, please give the article name where this is happening so that we can vote that the term is indeed POV. In any event I don't see how a vote can remove the 200 years of connotations that have built up around the word "terrorism"
Sure, "vigilante" has negative connotations. But we're operating entirely within the definition here. They are keeping vigil (they don't mention going further than just that, but others do), and thus they are vigilantes.
In my experience, "vigilante" does often mean somebody who takes justice into their own hands, often violently (ie, a man who murders people who have been proven to be rapists but got away from jail time due to a technicality), but it can also mean somebody who keeps watch well, somebody who is vigilant.
There is more to a word than its dictionary denotation. "Vigilante" does not escape so easily from its lynch-mob past. To say now that we can go back to literal root meanings is akin to the defence claim of not knowing the gun was loaded.
How can this be compared to terrorism? Because of our double-standard. If terrorism is an act, against civilians, intended to strike fear into the hearts of the populace, then I would generally say the events of 11.9 qualify. I would also say the nuclear bombings of Hirosima and Nagasaki qualify. Was that not the intention? So why don't we mention prominently in /those/ two articles that they were terrorist acts? Because we choose to restrict our in-group definition to only those acts perpetrated by people who are not part of the military of a nation internationally recognised as sovreign? Do we realise how sillily fine the line between those two categories is? The only reason we keep it separate is because we want to believe that Us attacking Them is not Evil ("terrorist" can often be used as a synonym for evil in modern American society), while Them attacking Us is. We demonise the British role in the war for American independence, yet we glorify the role of the Union in the American civil war which occurred for strikingly similar reasons. Both were cases of wars seeking to gain independence for a region, the Colonials and the Confederates were both the disgruntled, both wanted to break away, yet the Colonials are good but the Confederates are bad. Some say it's because they had slaves. Then why do we perpetuate the personality cult of George Washington who was a slaveowner?
You've just made the point that "terrorist" is POV, and yet seem to agree to its use. This is inconsistent.
Governments can indeed be terrorists. When the word was first used it was applied by Edmund Burke to the Reign of Terror in France, not to some rag-tag cluster of insurgents. If I were to single out any historical person from the US Civil War to call a terrorist it would be General Sherman. To judge George Washington on the basis of his being a slaveowner is anachronistic; it applies the standards of another era to a time when slave ownership was not seriously questioned. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see a list of US presidents who owned slaves at any time in their lives. It is also notable that objections to slavery were already on the rise, particularly in Virginia. As Thomas Moore observed in 1804, Who can, with patience, for a moment see The medley mas of pride and misery Of whips and charters, manacles and rights, Of slaving blacks and democratic whites, And all the piebald polity that reigns In free confusion o'er Columbia's plains?
Double-standards obviously exist within society, but we should keep them out of Wikipedia.
And as a general guideline, if more than 1/4th of the people involved in a discussion say the text is POV, it probably is POV but you just can't see that.
A POV is far less obvious when it is held by a large majority. I recently saw a quote from H. L. Mencken to the effect that Americans most trust those politicians who tell them lies, and distrust most the ones who say the truth.
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