A terrorist is someone who uses terror in order to coerce a reaction out of people.
The set of people who do that is not the same as the set to which ‘terrorist’ applies. In fact, it isn’t even a superset.
Unless it is site policy not to use the word terrorist
There is no rule. Just a general tendency to think less of the contributions of sloppy thinking. In fact political advocacy of this kind is somewhat discouraged in general due to the near inevitable nature of such conversations.
Is it? Or do we simply not call some such organizations terrorist organizations out of politeness?
I suppose one could argue that the proper definition is “A non-state entity who commits criminal acts for the purpose of invoking terror to coerce actions from others”, which will capture almost all groups that we consider to be terrorist groups, though it really depends—is a group who creates fear about the food supply for their own ends a terrorist group? I would argue yes (though one could also argue that this is equivalent to crying fire in a crowded theater, and thus a criminal act).
Arguing about definitions isn’t very useful. Discussion is much more likely to go in a positive direction if you point to specific actions and describe why they’re harmful.
The set of people who do that is not the same as the set to which ‘terrorist’ applies. In fact, it isn’t even a superset.
There is no rule. Just a general tendency to think less of the contributions of sloppy thinking. In fact political advocacy of this kind is somewhat discouraged in general due to the near inevitable nature of such conversations.
Is it? Or do we simply not call some such organizations terrorist organizations out of politeness?
I suppose one could argue that the proper definition is “A non-state entity who commits criminal acts for the purpose of invoking terror to coerce actions from others”, which will capture almost all groups that we consider to be terrorist groups, though it really depends—is a group who creates fear about the food supply for their own ends a terrorist group? I would argue yes (though one could also argue that this is equivalent to crying fire in a crowded theater, and thus a criminal act).
Legal nitpick—the issue is falsely shouting fire
Arguing about definitions isn’t very useful. Discussion is much more likely to go in a positive direction if you point to specific actions and describe why they’re harmful.