'Terrorism is a threat to the state' maybe, but that raises another question 'what is National Security'?
I used to think it meant the security of people. Considering it that way ever murder, every death for lack of Health Care eg, is a National Security issue.
But the term 'National Security' is vague in this country. A country that denies basic care to the poor, care that IS provided in most other civilized countries.
To me, the reason why the Texas explosion and the New Orleans attacks or the daily shootings of people in poor communities, don't get the same attention as the Boston shootings, is because the State can't USE those killings to justify their wars and mostly the obscene amount of money they receive to 'protect our national security'.
Every shooting of every individual IS a terrorist act assuming the State views all threats to citizens, lack of HC etc, as a threat to the security of its citizens. The truth is War is big business and anything that keeps the people terrorized into thinking that war is necessary for their security gets the label 'terrorism' slapped on it.
It used to be 'Communism', now its 'Terrorism'.
There is also everything you say about the value of lives and how that is assessed here in the US. Poor people, minority lives are definitely not viewed as having the same value as wealthy lives. The poor and foreigners we kill apparently do not 'feel' the same sense of loss for their loved as the rest of society. Empathy for them is lacking. The question is why, why is it so hard to understand that every death is an equal loss to, especially those who love them, and in fact to society as a whole?
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
John Donne's view of each and every death. But to hold that view we would have to be a very evolved society with nothing to gain from the deaths of other human beings. Money, profit, power are what seem to drive our impressions of which deaths are important and which are not.
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