The problem with Palin’s answer
October 24th, 2008Spencer Ackerman worries about the effects of forgetting the definition of “terrorist” , as Palin says Bill Ayers is unquestionably a terrorist while she wouldn’t neccesarily go that far when it comes to abortion-clinic bombers or protestors hurling Molotov cocktails at police:
The point isn’t that one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, which is also an absurd, lazy and euphemistic statement. It’s that when you start down this path, you lose the ability to draw necessary distinctions, and end up with an overbroad and counterproductive definition of your enemy. That’s a feature, not a bug, of calling something a war on “terrorism.” Bush started it. Palin embraced it. And now she’s trapped in its absurdity.
I have a different problem with Palin’s answer after the jump.
Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act clearly defines domestic terrorism:
The term “domestic terrorism” means activities that–
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended–(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
My biggest problem with this answer is that it displays a complete lack of familiarity with the law. The legal definition of domestic terrorism is broader than one might naively expect, but it’s very clear and very well defined in the Patriot Act. It quite clearly includes any violence (or incitement to commit violence) that could/does intimidate the public or substantively interfere with the affairs of government. This includes assassination and calls for assassination, which I would hope Palin and McCain would’ve soberly discussed in light of things being hollered at their rallies. It undoubtedly includes (retroactively) the Weather Underground attacks, abortion clinic bombings, shooting at Federal agents enforcing the law in your separatist compound, etc.
Whether you agree with it or not, that’s the law. As a Governor in charge of her state’s Homeland Security, and especially as a Governor of a state with an active separatist party at the least talking about violence, it’s one of the few laws that she ought to be intimately familiar with. Regardless of whether she’s talking about firebombing leftist radicals or someone lighting up abortionists, a wishy washy “well I don’t know if you’d call ‘em terrorists, Brian!” answer should be incredibly unsettling for Alaskans who put her in charge of an increasingly important aspect of state governance.