Claire Doyle - Blog Post 5

While reading the potential prompts for our final essay, I began thinking back to all of our readings and class discussions on these topics. One of the questions that really stuck out to me was the question asking, "What is terrorism? Why does it matter?" This is such a deep question that can unravel so many different thoughts, perspectives, opinions, and international laws and concepts. 

Terrorism occurs when unlawful groups are in the pursuit of personal political goals by acts of violence and criminal activity. Terrorism is not an empirical event, and is not a term used to chastise particular political events. 

A terrorist can be an individual or group whom inflicts violence against civilians of a certain culture, group, etc., motivated by political gains or hate. Terrorists use violence, intimidation, and threats through the use of destruction or violent acts in pursuit of political gain. These acts of violence directly harm people for a hateful reason to pursue individual agenda with the attention of creating power for themselves. This act of violence and intimidation aimed for political gain usually is aimed at regular civilians. 

This topic stuck out to me in the final paper questions because of recent events occurring within the United States. 

I have been reading a lot of different articles on the recent school shooting that occurred in Michigan. Though school shootings are horrible and unthinkable crimes, I have never really considered them to be an act of terrorism. 

Though the shooter was also charged with multiple other chargers, including four first-degree murder counts, I found it so interesting that he could even be charged with terrorism. There are so many stereotypes around terrorism and other countries, I never pegged a high school aged child, in the US to be able to be capable of committing a true act of terrorism. Karen KcDonald, the prosecutor, said, "if that's not terrorism, I don't know what is."

Comments

  1. Keri GilliganDecember 10, 2021 at 2:04 PM

    I have reflected on the same idea about whether or not school shootings are an act of terrorism, but I think it is clear that they are. It kind of goes along with the idea that you the prosecutor brings up, if this isn't then where are we drawing the line, how long will we let this go on. I may also argue that it could be more urgent for the Untied States to take a look at itself first and address the domestic terrorism that is taking place on its own land before trying to tackle international terrorism. Both of these issues need to be addressed, but possibly more focus on ourselves.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Claire Doyle - Blog Post 1

     The study of international relations is based primarily on a sexist and racist foundation. According to the work of Du Bois, “Of the Culture of White Folk” and Ann J. Tickner’s “Morganthau’s Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformation,” the analysis of international politics is based solely on the views of white men. Throughout Du Bois’s work, he critiqued that the study of international politics existed before sociology, political theory, law, and colonial development. Tickner critiqued the work of Hans Morganthau and his Six Principles of Political Realism, which Tickner argued were “a partial description of international politics because it is based on assumptions about human nature that are partial and privilege masculinity” (Tickner, 431). Regardless of what one studies, the basis of that historical foundation is most definitely based on the views of a white male. Whether it is the study of science and using Einstein’s studies, US History, the Foundi...
Read more

Blog post 3- Harrison Gold

  Harrison Gold POLS170 Blog 3 Economic Funding Under COVID-19 The Covid world we are living into today has created tremendous hardship, in many forms.  In addition to the unthinkable death toll associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, there is the devastating impact that the coronavirus has had on the economy – both in the US and abroad.  However,, some of this impact has been mitigated by our governments efforts. Because of the deadly and contagious nature of the Covid-19 and its variants, the last two years have created changes in our lives that were previously unthinkable – which includes the devastating economic toll resulting from Covid’s impact on the global economy.  For the sake of this blog, I will initially lay out the economic impact of the coronavirus, followed by the measures with which the US government has enacted to keep our economy in check and to avoid a complete collapse.  Many other countries has taken comparable measures w...
Read more

Blog Post 3

 In my third blog post, I wanted to discuss global economy, and specifically, Strange's article that discussed the difference between Japan's financial power compared to the United State's (keep in mind that this article was written in 1990). Strange's core argument is that the reasoning behind the disparity between the financial powers of Japan compared to the united states comes down to the fact that Japan's power was "relational", while the United State's was structural. Essentially, the international use of the Yen along with the "percentages of Japanese trade invoiced in Yen" (269). Strange argues that these two indicators fell short on the international playing field, as the use of the Yen made up very small percentages in international trade. The United States, on the other hand, dominated in terms of the use of the dollar, and even had exchange rate protections for imports and exports.  The point of my discussion, however, is to discu...
Read more