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Dylan Roof   killed 9 people, injured none. Joseph Jesse Aldridge killed 8 people, injured 1. Thomas Jessee Lee killed 5, injured none. Cedric G. Prather, 5 killed, 2 injured. Christopher Carrillo killed 5 people and injured none. Michael “Augustine” Bournes killed 5 and injured none.
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez killed 5 people and injured 3 people.
Which shooting was jumped on at a moment's notice, with mentions of terrorism? What determines who is called a terrorist? Religiously motivated violence? "Terrosim" is an arbitrary way to label violence, a way to drive the narrative. Don't be fooled by it.

i dont think so, but terrorism is identic with a religion as we know that.
but cause is it make a image in the religion that so when there a any people doing shootings we call terrorism.
but the definition about terrorism is not that. terrorrism is like who people terrorizing continuately.
and make we self threaten. thats i think.

Nowdays people definition for terrorism is being a muslim . If it's a muslim kid at school they call him Osama Ben Laden or joke about him making a bomb on the school .
If someone got killed on the street by Gangsters and there was a muslim on the street , It would be him the killer even if he didn't do anything but when an atheist or christian or X religion kills a Muslim it's pretty normal and we change the word to something more polite like "Sick" "Psycho" etc .

everyone know what is they "muslim do terrorism" and making disorder.
and may be we still remember what happen in WTC, USA in 11 septembre 2001.
with the incident Muslim having image teroorism, make they phobia with Muslim until now as e know.
but not all of muslim doing that, doing terrorism and making disorder, guys. in this world many good and bad people.

OP, this is a very good question.
I'm not sure, a political motivated attack is the best I can come up with.

Fooled by it?  So some whack job is shouting Allah Akbar while he cuts someone's head off and says it's for the glory of Islam, and you want to say "oh, it's a way to drive a narrative?"

That's ridiculous.  That ignores the stated intent of the perpetrator.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/07/a_new_syndrome_anything_but_islam_.html

There's always one person that decides to ignore 80% of of what one is talking about to take a sentence out of context. "What is the post about? Gun violence? Mass shootings and the way the media portrays the shooters? Nah, it's about decapitation videos!" Religious fundamentalism and violence fueled by that fundamentalism is not exclusive to Islam, yet there is little to no coverage of the Christian fundamentalists that are pushing communities to be bible literalists and persecute witches.

Intent is good and all, but is that enough to make it priority? "We hate America, and the infidels will burn for Allah's glory"... so? We have so much more to deal with back home, we have a much better use for the money we're wasting in this sunni/shia/kurd conflict in the middle east. Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez and Dylan Roof were equally radicalized in different ideology, what makes Youssef Abdulazeez's a larger threat? Nothing. Yet, "domestic terrorism" is why we have to... what did bush say? "get them over there, before they get us over here"?

"Gee, they hate American intervention in their country! Better intervene some more! We will solve this violence with more violence. No way that will help muslims inside the US to feel persecuted. No way that will fuel radicalization of the mentally ill that just happen to be muslim." Didn't some white guy with a persecution complex (I believe he said something like "the government is racist towards white people") just shoot up a theater? Then you have someone hearing about how much collateral damage the US does in the middle east (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147 (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147)), in predominantly Muslim places, and of Guantanamo Bay, where (I would guess) a mostly Muslim population is tortured and murdered for fun (no useful information came from those tortures or from those murders)... and he bombs a Boston athletic event.

Thos two suffered from the same kind of dementia. Both performed deadly acts of violence. For one, we say "the gun laws and mental illness issues in the country must be better addressed", for the second, we say "we have to increase our military expenditure abroad, and increase our unconstitutional wiretapping programs". There is a clear double standard that I wanted to illustrate by using shootings, and how the media is portraying them.

PS: Sorry about the rant, my response is mostly the underlined sentence.

No, the rants fine.  You simply haven't proved your point - if you had a point, other than some diffuse anger.  I just answered your question in a very simple way.

"Which do we call Muslim terrorism?"

Answer "Those which the perp says are Muslim terrorism."

Alah Akbar and all that.

You see, your rant doesn't address your initial question posed - it represents sort of a justification for terrorism.  That's really a different question isn't it?

Oh, and by the way - maybe my answer isn't perfect, but it's pretty good.  Should you make intent a priority?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Of course you do.

"Oh, I shot the cop/blackman/etc.  I intended to shoot the cop/blackman/etc."

Gee, should we prioritize intent?

I feel like you asked a question, did not like the answer, then went off in five different directions?

Question: So, which shootings do we call terrorism?  
Answer: So some whack job is shouting Allah Akbar while he cuts someone's head off and says it's for the glory of Islam, and you want to say "oh, it's a way to drive a narrative?" That's ridiculous. That ignores the stated intent of the perpetrator.

Hm, it's almost as if that's not the answer to the question. A question meant to invoke thought of how our media portrays different shootings. To get you thinking about the huge expense that the "war on terror" in the middle east is, despite the fact that right-wing extremists seem to be a larger threat to American lives (you can find an in-debt analysis of that here: politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/08/sally-kohn/kohn-911-right-wing-extremists-killed-more-america/ (http://politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/08/sally-kohn/kohn-911-right-wing-extremists-killed-more-america/)). Should we prioritize intent? Sure, ISIS has the intent to "destroy all western infidels"... but their over-ambitious intent does not make them a more urgent cause than other (more deadly things) we have to deal with in the homeland. So, no... we should not prioritize intent. Intent may be key to finding a solution to the violence's root, but we should not prioritize which we deal with by intent. Drug cartels are another violent organization that is much more deadly to American lives, but we prioritize the sunni/shia/kurd conflict in the middle east, it makes no sense to prioritize intent.

My whole rant had a point. The point I that we're not responding to the threat of Muslim extremists in an appropriate manner. We're not solving the problem, we're just spending trillions of dollars on wars that yield little to no results.

Saying that our response to the threat of Muslim extremist is not appropriate (and that in fact, our efforts [unconstitutional spying programs, torture and murder in Guantanamo Bay, and missile strikes that kill tons of civilians] might be making the problem worst), does not mean I am making excuses for violence! We're wasting our resources intervening in a conflict halfway around the world. We're fighting in a conflict of no consequence to us, fueling discontent and hatred towards the nation with missile strikes that cause huge collateral damage.

The article does NOT say what you claim it says.

Well, that's changing the goalposts, changing the question.  The original question was this -

What determines who is called a terrorist? Religiously motivated violence? "Terrosim" is an arbitrary way to label violence, a way to drive the narrative. Don't be fooled by it.

Just saying.

Also I don't care if you go in a different direction, just don't assert I addressed a question of that different direction when I simply answered the original one.  But on that subject, no, you can't belittle Mulsim/Islamic Terrorism, the counts are very high.

www.thereligionofpeace.com

Changing the goalpost!? Nice projecting. The original question is the title of this post, the title you clicked on to read those other questions!

The post is formatted as follows.
Title: So, which shooting do we call terrorism?
[list of recent shootings with a single perp.]
[Questions you decided to take out of context]

Which did you read first, the tittle of this post, or the post itself? You HAD to see the tittle first, read of the shootings first, then read those questions. This post is about shootings and the media double standard of when to call a shooting "terrorism".

Like I said, you're that type of person that ignores context (the question previous to the ones you quoted helps provide the context) and runs with a sentence or to into a tangent. I'm not drafting a legal document here, I thought this forum would have people honest enough to not take questions about the shootings and media reaction out of context.

Maybe its my fault, I didnt include redundancies to account for people like you, that like to stuff out of context and misinteprete things. Maybe I should have typed: "Which shooting was jumped on at a moment's notice, with mentions of terrorism? [In the media,] What [do you think] determines who [(as in which shooter)] is called a terrorist? Religiously motivated [gun] violence? "Terrosim" is an arbitrary way to label [gun] violence, a way to drive the narrative [a narrative that inflates the threat of muslim extremists in the homeland]. Don't be fooled by it."

That article provides analisys on whether rightwing extremists are currently more of a threat on americans' lives than muslim extremists. It doest go into a definite conclusion, but it seems that rightwing extremists have caused more deaths in the US than muslim extremists. That's why I said that they SEEM to be a bigger threat.

And no, I am not making excuses for terrorists, or out to belittle attacks. I repeat, I am criticizing our response to the problem. Guantanamo torture and murder is not helping solve the problem, missile strikes that cause large collateral damage do not solve the problem. Unconstitutional spying programs dont solve the problem. We also face more deadly (for US citizens, anyways) issues, (like the cartels) closer to home! We are not the world police, this is not our conflict. We should be stiking to helping our citizens and our allies. I dont think we should be spending so much money on this sunni/shia/kurd conflict.

I agree it shouldn't be called "terrorism." The distinction is whether or not the act was committed in the name of Jihad, so such incidents should be called something like Jihadist attack. At this point the word "terrorism" is being used as a euphimism to avoid explicitly connecting it to Islam.

Terrorism have no religion. Terrorism have no reason. Terrorism have no government. Terrorism have only sick mind that must be cured, isolated or eliminated.

Right, maybe you should have said something different.  Because otherwise they'd have no clue what you were talking about other than what you said.  There's no "double standard" such as you suggest though.

But if you want to figure out some way that slaughtering innocent people is okay because the USA (blah blah blah), the USA (blalblah blah) etc, go ahead.  Why don't you call it "workplace violence."

Oh, wait..they tried that....

Here's your OP:

Dylan Roof   killed 9 people, injured none.
Joseph Jesse Aldridge killed 8 people, injured 1.
Thomas Jessee Lee killed 5, injured none.
Cedric G. Prather, 5 killed, 2 injured.
Christopher Carrillo killed 5 people and injured none.
Michael “Augustine” Bournes killed 5 and injured none.
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez killed 5 people and injured 3 people.

Which shooting was jumped on at a moment's notice, with mentions of terrorism? What determines who is called a terrorist? Religiously motivated violence? "Terrosim" is an arbitrary way to label violence, a way to drive the narrative. Don't be fooled by it.

You are certainly correct that labels can be deceptive and misleading.  In other words, anything definite, descriptive, can be wrongly descriptive.  Anything vague, indefinite, is SAFE.


Good point.  Someone wants us to call killings where the crazy person is shouting "Allah Akbar" terrorist acts, while they are actually better described as, well...

Allah Akbars....

There you go again. We're going to go in circles and circles because you insist on willfully misinterpreting what I've said despite the fact that I've cleared it up for you. I am not making excuses for extremist Muslim attacks. I am criticizing the US government's response to those extremists, and our priorities. The fact that I think we should be acting differently in response to the issue doesn't mean I am belittling or making excuses for such issues. If I say "we should have different government actions when it comes to unemployment, our current actions might be making unemployment worse", does that mean that I'm making excuses for people that don't work despite being able to? No, but you're making that same asinine leap in logic to evade the horrible wrongdoings the US government has done in response to Muslim extremists. Because the US is wrong in some actions, doesn't mean that the violence in reaction to those actions is justified.

I believe the problem is that there must be a good guy and a bad guy, for you. If one side does wrong, the other side must be the good guy. So, I think that you think that my criticism of the US is a defense of attacks that target the innocent (therefore, me labeling the US as the bad guy and muslim extremists as good guys), but they're not. Muslim extremists (attached to an organization or not) are not the good guy. The US tries its best, but it's also done some horrible stuff In this conflict. Both sides have killed innocent bystanders, and that is wrong.

That's why I would like for Guantanamo torture and murders to stop, I would like missile strikes that have large collateral damage to stop, I would like unconstitutional spying programs to stop. Don't you? I think we don't disagree in that aspect. I would also like us to prioritize things that are more deadly to US citizens and citizens of US allied nations, our money is better spent outside the sunni/shia/kurd conflict. That second part is something we might disagree with.

So if you want to have an honest conversation about what we actually disagree on, now's your chance.

As for what we decide to actually call terrorism (be it a Muslim shooting up a Navy base, or a Christian bombing medical clinics), and whether or not there is a double standard in coverage and rhetoric... I'll leave everyone to form their own opinion, because that's a bit subjective. Where I see bias, there might be none; or where I see perfectly unbiased coverage, it may be pushing a narrative. I don't think there's an easy way to prove ether way.

Just for grins, suppose you separated US mass killers into 2 groups -

- lone wolf US citizens
- Muslim terrorists

Assume the groups are about equal in size.

The first group, as exemplified by say, the Unibomber, can be addressed only through ratcheting up mass survelliance to the Nth degree.

The second group, as exemplified by the Boston marathon retards, can be addressed through survelliance on Muslim unmarried males between ages 18-45.

You have limited resources.

You don't like unconstitutional spying.

which group would you focus on, and why?

Lone wolves? There's another biased narrative. There was a major extremist attack against a Muslim mosque directed by... well, non-Muslims (I assume).

From talking points memo (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/robert-doggart-islamberg-plot): “Our small group will soon be faced with the fight of our lives,” Doggart wrote in another Facebook post. “We will offer those lives as collateral to prove our commitment to our God. We shall be Warriors who will inflict horrible numbers of casualties upon the enemies of our Nation and World Peace.”

But let's set that aside to talk of your hypothetical scenario. Both groups are of same size, am I correct in assuming they cause the same-ish amount of casualties? Why exactly is mass surveillance the only way to deal with non-Muslim extremists? How do you know we only need to place that range of Muslims under surveillance? What of our efforts abroad? In your scenario, are we still torturing people in Guantanamo Bay? Are we still ordering massive collateral damage causing missile strikes?

Why do we need mass surveillance if data suggests (the information is not conclusive) that right-wing extremists are more likely to become a threat? Why not range it into more likely candidates like with your Muslim extremists of this hypothetical world? How much data do we have in the real world that backs up that range for likely violent Muslim extremists? And more importantly, how many casualties a year are we talking about?

I kind of have an answer, but I need more information from your hypothetical scenario.

Um, casualties per year from Muslim extremists?

I'm kind of lazy.  Don't like write big numbers.  How about just for June?

Jihad Attacks:    262
 Countries:    29
 Allah Akbars:    48
 Dead Bodies:    2426
 Critically Injured:  2582

thereligionofpeace.com

Your assertion...

Why do we need mass surveillance if data suggests (the information is not conclusive) that right-wing extremists are more likely to become a threat?

Is false(bolded)....unless you consider muslim extremists a variety of "right-wing exremists".

As for "why mass surveillance", well how exactly do you think governments get info on masses of people, if not by such methods?  trying to not get thing confusing here is difficult because you keep throwing five different arguments ouit.  But let's say that the hypothetical "right wing extremists" are "lone wolf attacks" while the Muslim extremists are organized, which they are.  We know that these guys go to certain mosques and "study" with certain "clerics" and become radicalized.  So there is a high probability an Islamic terrorist knows about other Islamic terrorists.  that is not so for the "right wing lone wolf extremist."

Does that make sense regarding the hypothetical scenario proposed for discussion?

Sorry, I forgot that you cannot process information in context. I meant to say "Why do we need mass surveillance if data suggests (the information is not conclusive) that right-wing extremists are more likely to become a threat to citizens of the United States of America?" I've provided the data to back up that claim. You read it yourself.

But whatever, we're talking hypothetical scenario, right?

An easy way to discuss multiple things in a single conversation is to address each thing one at a time. OK, first let's talk about the assumptions we're making about your HS (hypothetical scenario): The majority of domestic right-wing (non-Muslim) attacks are not organized within a group, but the Muslim terrorist are more likely to be organized by religious institutions; both groups are equal in size (are they equal in casualties in your HS?); mass surveillance is the most advanced tool available, we're assuming that we can store and search through the data with high efficiency and not using that tool for anything other than the reduction of extremist attacks (which is not true in the real world, where it is used to spy on women). So, we agree with those assumptions in the HS, right?

Secondly, questions I want cleared about the HS. What is our goal? Is our effort worldwide or localized to the USA? What of our efforts abroad? Are we still torturing people in Guantanamo Bay in the HS? Are we still ordering massive collateral damage causing missile strikes? What else do we know about those two groups of extremists (we already know the Muslim extremist are more likely to be organized in group, and rightwing extremists are more likely to be "lone wolves" in the HS)?

Yes, I did, and I did not find it supported your claim at all.  But more interesting is the exclusion of Muslim terrorists from the so called "right wing extremists" category.  I would suggest that Muslim terrorists are the very definition of right wing extremist.  They are pure religious fundmanentalists, which is definitional on "right wing extremist."  Anyway I think the correct phrase would be "domestic right wing extremist."  But I'd still include Muslim extremists in that category - definitionally.  So why aren't they?

The only reason I can think of is to somehow put "Right wing extremist" in the conservative/Republican camp as opposed to "Left wing extremist".

This is important because I can't even agree with the premises of the question, so the question and conclusions look nonsensical.

Sure, why not go with those assumptions?  After all, Obama was the glorious solution to Bush's warlike and savage behavior, and now all the Obamaheads are wondering whether they got themselves Bush2.  I'm not saying I like or agree with it, but why not keep those assumptions....

As I see it depends on the political agenda of the people who classifying a given shooting. An old example: back in the cold war days the IRA was viewed as a terrorist organization in the west, and as freedom fighters in the soviet block.

Well, we simply don't have that problem.

The only question would be whether Muslim Terrorist should be called Muslim Jihadists.  They self-identify as such, however I don't think they would mind the "Terrorist" label.

Damn it, Spendulus, you took what I aid about your hypothetical scenario and acted as if I said it about reality. How about we dont make any of those assumptions in reality and stick with the FACTS!? And you keep refusing to take a few words and conclude logically towards their meaning by considering their context!

Yeah, muslim extremists have a rightwing ideology. However, the article was abut the question of whether or not "domestic, non-muslim right-wing 'terrorists' (extremists)" were a larger threat to US citizens than muslim extremists (domestic or otherwise) since the date of 9/11. That is a question without a definite answer, but the data suggests that domestic, non-muslim terrorist are a larger threat (regardless of their ideology, left or right [though I think anti-abortion, anti-government extremists have a larger kill count]).

There's also the problem of how they self-identify. Most muslim extremists that attack US citizens on US soil aren't screaming "Allahu Akbar!" as they're doing it. They don't seem to usually explicitly explain that their violence is "for the glory of islam" or whatever. We both completely agree that the Boston bomber was a muslim extremist, that what he did is wrong. He said that what he did was a response to the killing of (innocent?) muslims in the middle east. If I'm not mistaken, he stuck to that reason to the point when he was sentenced. I am not excusing terrorism, attacking innocent people is wrong, I just want to point out that the US government has killed innocent muslims and killing innocent US citizens is a completely, immoral, wrong response. Hope that keeps you from strawmanning the thing... again.

Muslim extremist come with as many self-identifiers as there are attackers, I think. We should stick to the shooter's (bomber/stabber/etc.) profile, how that shooter fits in the national status quo, and act proportionately and accordingly to the threat level.

No, they shouldn't. E.g. palestinians and Hezbollah fighting for their own land and rights, but IS and other jihadists have entirely different goals and rhetoric, however the methods can be pretty much the same. 

The Muslim guy is the terrorist in the cases. No matter if a Muslim was a victim he was the terrorist. That is the wrongest approach. I know many Muslims, they are the nicest people. The terrorist attacks are done by crazy Muslims people, who are not wanted by the Muslims too.

Oh, believe me, I did get your point about the moral equivalency of "muslim terrorists in the USA" and "USA terrorism in the Middle East."  I do not agree with it, but I understood it.  Since the question was categorizing extremist acts, I do not clearly see that it is relevant.

Do you want to give "Muslim extremists who kill innocent people in the USA" a pass from slapping the "terrorist" label if they are not Screaming Allah Akbars?  Just trying to clarify your position here.  Personally, I really do not care if they are screaming Allah Akbar, or bitching about the Palestinians, the Great Satan, to me the only exception to "terrorist" might be if they were acting against an operational military group and were wearing a uniform of an opposing group.

Am I saying that there is a moral equivalence between extremist attacks that target US citizens and sloppy dronestrikes that cause huge collateral damage? No. That idea has some merit behind it, but I don't back it up. I have been saying that those are not the way to solve that issue. Torturing people in Guantanamo Bay is not the way to tackle the issue. I have been repeatedly saying that I'm criticizing our actions, as their results are largely limited at best and counteractive to our goal at worst. If you want to debate moral equivalency, or excuses for extremist attacks on the innocent, find someone who is arguing them!

Now, I'm not saying that "terrorist" is a label that should not be applied to violence. I'm expressing that in shootings in the USA, it seems that "terrorist" is quickly applied to some, not at all to others, who have similar extremist views... just of different origin.

Maybe and maybe not.  Some mass killings are not terrorism, they are just crazy.  I guess the ones that are intended to make some sort of political point would be clearly terrorism.  And some of those are not on the Government-List.  For example, the Allah Akbar soldier of Islam at Ft. Hood, Texas.  The US government classified this sick puppy as being a perp in "Workplace Violence." 

How about that.

if that persons idea is to murder innocent people to make a statement to the masses
that is my idea of a terrorist
but also anyone who shoots another person as caused terror if you look at it that way