🚀 go-pugleaf

While we are debating terminology, vandalism or terrorism, maybe the
real questions we should be asking ourselves are:

Is the destruction of property a legitimate form of political protest?

Should the punishment be different for those destroying property as a
form of political protest versus those doing it for pleasure, revenge,
or financial gain?

Personally, I do not find the destruction of property as a legitimate
form of political protest.

In my lifetime, the greatest political and social movement in American
history took place. I speak of the civil rights movement. Yes, there
was some violence and destruction of property, but it was the peaceful
civil disobedience of Martin Luther King that led the nation to see the
injustice of segregation and discrimination.

Even with all the bitching that goes on here about governmental
inaction and lack of responsiveness to citizens' needs and wishes, we
still live in the United States of America, where individuals can still
through peaceful protest, and working through the political process,
change laws and public policies. There is no need to resort to
destruction of property, whether it be the abortion clinic bombers or
the "eco-terrorists" (using the term now,only because that the term
used in the news media).

IMHO, as far as punishment is concerned, those who destroy property as
a form of political or social protest should be, at the very least,
treated the same as those who do it for a financial gain.

Ending on a personal note. As a small child in the mid-1950's, I
remember being downtown with my siblings and mother. As small kids
always are, we were "HUNGRY". My mother took us to the Newberrys lunch
counter, where there was a "WHITES ONLY" sign. The mother's reaction
was "If they wont serve everyone, they wont serve us". Even though my
parents, nor I or my siblings, ever experienced discrimination in our
lifetimes, it was the one of the many lessons my mother taught us about
the injustice of it during our youth. And, I still remember well into
the 1970's, Newberrys lunch counters were still a hard place for
minorities to get service at.