Who is a terrorist and who is a patriot?

Lady Liberty writes:

"According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, terrorism is either 'the unlawful use or threat of violence especially against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion' or 'violent and intimidating gang activity.'

"The idea behind terrorism is basic: to generate terror. The methodology, regardless of the specifics, is just as simple: sudden and deadly violence of the kind that any rational human being would find terrifying. Terrorists hope their actions will engender whatever change it is they're aiming to facilitate through such intense fear...

"In its knee jerk reaction to the 9/11 attacks, the federal government rapidly defined its targets not only as terrorists but as those who are broadly defined as 'potential' terrorists... From the perspective of both the laws and the agencies, the most immediate result was that of a curtailment of civil liberties...

"Distilled down to its most basic premise, virtually any human being could loosely be termed a 'potential' terrorist...

"The biggest problem for those of us who are innocent is that some in government have gone much further. They've enaged in what is essentially a rewriting of definitions so as to target some people who are not... particularly popular with those same government authorities. Coincidentally (or perhaps not so coincidentally), many of the people falling under these more refined definitions are the same people who are the most likely to be railing against government inroads against various freedoms...

"For reasons that can easily be logically refuted, the government has determined that the ID cards are a great way to fight terrorism. Do you really think they're going to take any refusals to participate particularly well?

"recently... at a kind of educational seminar... conducted by the Department of Homeland Security... he was also informed that those supporting a strict interpretation of the Constitution are terrorists.

"Even as the label 'terrorist' is being redefined, so is the term 'patriot.' A patriot is, quit simply, one who loves his country. But now some government officials suggest that anyone who criticizes the war effort in Iraq is 'unpatriotic.' Others in positions of government authority... have made it clear that anyone who suggests that civil liberties might be more important than absolute safety are behaving unpatriotically...

"I do believe that the National ID card and similar tracking measures are evil because they undermine freedom... I am concerned at the rapidly growing mindset that potentiality is all but synonymous with actuality... I do support a literal interpretation of the Constitution as well as a return to the ideals of the Constitution as they were originally presented to the 13 colonies prior to ratification...

"In George Orwell's infamous novel 1984, one of the hallmarks of the tyrannical government under which his characters lived was something called 'newspeak.' By using 'newspeak,' the government redefined various words to mean whatever it wanted them to mean, and via incessant propaganda, it made sure the general population knew the 'correct' definitions as well. In the novel, bad was redefined as good, and war became peace; history was rewritten on an almost daily basis to conform.

"This habit of redefining words might be a little more subtle in the real world, but there's very little question that it's happening. The recent discoveries of government propaganda films released as 'news' stories was dismaying, but not unsurprising... In the short run, I suppose, then, I should consider any government attempts to label me and people like me as 'unpatriotic' or a 'terrorist' as actually being a compliment. But in the long run, government's predilection to change such definitions on a whim doesn't bode well for me...or for any of the rest of you, either."

03-13-05: By Definition