Yikes, I guess I should have prefaced each of my statements with the whole “Devil’s Advocate” bit.
I’m in no way saying that the members of the Weather Underground should be held to anything remotely approximating the standard of our Founding Fathers. I had hoped to foster some kind of discussion, and it appears I have.
“Forrest, you area a POS. You are truly mentally ill to compare the founding fathers to Ayers.
They fought for a system of freedom. Ayers fought to take away that freedom and murder millions who didn’t fall into line whil puting themselves into power.”
This is what I’m talking about. Why resort to name calling and insults? These people felt that something with our society was wrong. We can choose to agree or disagree with what they found wrong, we can find it morally reprehensible, etc. But these people acted out for a reason. Shouldn’t we at least investigate those reasons to see if there’s something that can change to prevent OTHERS for taking up that mantle and committing more acts of violence? If they’re crackpots, ignore them. If there IS even some remote nugget of truth to their justification, though, I think it deserves some attention lest someone else come along and use the same justification to do us real harm.
I guess I may have gone a bit too far in comparing these fools to our Founding Fathers – I was just trying to make a point about “Point of View”. To the English, our founding fathers were rebels and terrorists. I for one believe the motivations of our Founding Fathers were morally sound. They laid out a pretty convincing argument in the Declaration of Independence. Why wasn’t that enough for the English, though? Do you think the English of the time felt that those same ideals were morally sound?
Actually I’m not sure why I even started down this line of reasoning. But I’m not siding with the Weather Underground or their actions, or any terrorist actions. What I’m saying is you can’t ignore them or their motivations if you ever want to finally stop such activities. Sure, you’ll always have people acting out because they feel they’ve been wronged. That doesn’t mean that our society is perfect as it stands. We can always improve.
Omar – I’m not arguing specifically for their point of view, but more against people in general just calling terrorists criminals and not taking a look at WHY they terrorized. Maybe using the Weather Underground for this is a bad example, as by almost any sane, reasonable person’s standards (mine included) their motives and ambitions were horrific.
Fred – Interesting argument, and I guess I’ve not made myself well understood, maybe because I was posting while at work and not sticking to a central point. I guess my question was more of a warning. If we ignore the underlying causes terrorists use for justifying their actions, we risk someone who IS a real, competent leader taking up that cause and doing even more, lasting harm to our society.
I’m not saying to give them any benefit of any doubt. They committed crimes, and no line of reasoning should free them of their debt to society for those crimes.
I think maybe this will be my last post on this topic. I really am not insane, or a Marxist, or socialist. I in no way advocate the actions of terrorists. I just try to keep an open mind and give real thought to issues.
