Ok well, fair enough, here I go:feather240 said:
The Oxford Dictionary defines it as "the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims." But the MacMillan Dictionary states that it's 'the use of violence to achieve political aims." Note that this definition completely negates the 'unofficial or unauthorized' clause present in the Oxford Dictionary, which makes this definition fundamentally different from the Oxford's. Webster's uses the same definition you and wikipedia used, once again, completely different from the other two, failing to to mention both its 'unofficial nature' as well as suggesting that it is a form of coercion, meaning that the MacMillan's definition of 'political aims' is negated because coercion can be used beyond politics to affect culture, social interaction, etc. Encarta simply calls it 'political violence: violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and assassination, carried out for political purposes'.
Tell me, do these definitions come off as consistant? Or do they in fact define terrorism in similiar, but at the same time varying ways? There is a massive difference between unofficial use of violence, and legitimate use of force. Oxford and the MacMillan's definitions end up describing it in a completely different way due to this simple change. Remember that terrorism (in its modern form) was originally a word used in the French Revolution to describe the Reign of Terror, which was caused by a legitimized government, not a rogue political group. Guess they didn't know the 'precise' definition either eh?
So how is Webster's definition more legitimate then the ones present in other dictionaries? Despite having some shared concepts, the little details in these definitions fundamentally change what the word means and entails. So even the literal definition of the word is largely in question.
