“You misunderstood my bigotry as hurtful.” Not “I understand my views were bigoted and therefore hurtful.”

Whoosh. They’re not mutually exclusive.

An analogy is a comparison. I was comparing a case of labeling something I see as obviously terrorism to a case of labeling something obviously killing. I wasn’t making a comparison to say Tesla is equivalent to OBL.

Sure we can debate the definition of terrorism, which I’m open to being wrong about. When you say “calculated” I understand that as premeditated with some thought towards planning the action. Hypothetically say we have someone who regularly carries a gun, and is walking around during Pride parade. Say he’s historically anti-queer/DEI, what ever stereotype. Say for whatever reason he gets angry enough, something’s happened and it’s the last straw and he wants to put an end to the leftist agenda and starts shooting at the crowds, while spouting his political ideology. It’s a caricature, but has all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack except on the point not being “calculated”, it’s a spur of the moment, unplanned attack. I’d still call that terrorism.

Another point though, I think many of the people who have been vandalizing Tesla did calculate their actions. Especially the arson cases must have involved some degree of thought/planning. And part of that thought is the political stance that Musk is wrong and billionaires like Musk should be afraid of the people.

I wasn’t comparing Tesla to Osama Bin Laden? I was making an analogy to clarify my point of calling an obvious spade a spade. Terrorism doesn’t have to be calculated, it just has to be politically motivated. I happen to agree with the political motivations and stance of the violence in this case. That doesn’t change what it is.

Totally agree.

I hate Elon and I don’t even disagree with targeting Tesla. But let’s be real. Mass targeted vandalism and especially arson are clearly forms of violence. The victims of this violence are civilians and the purpose of the violence is to achieve political goals through instilling fear.

Agree with the actions or not, that’s terrorism.

If people started targeting and burning down costcos for being woke/DEI, that would be terrorism for the exact same reason, not because the ideology is different.

People need to stop pussyfooting around the label and accept that words mean certain things. The issue is not whether or not it’s terrorism. The argument should be whether or not the actions are justifiable.

It’s like whinging about whether or not we say “Osama Bin Laden was killed” or if the person who shot him is a “killer” because killing in general is bad/wrong.

Now the government response of categorizing certain people vs others as terrorists matters. What it means for people resisting Trump matters. But those are different arguments.