It is kind of silly but there's a sort of logic behind it. Essentially the idea is that if someone waves a knife in your face and threatens to stab you, the courts will consider this a violent crime, even if there are no stabbings nor attempted stabbings involved (which I'm sure you'll agree sounds a fairly reasonable practice).
No, by definition violence indicates harmful force, yet there is no force involved.
Firstly I was claiming this seemed a reasonable practise (or rather I was claiming that Dutchling would probably find it a reasonable practise), I was
not claiming it was... how shall I say this, semantically accurate practise.
The same way that if someone was stealing money from a cash register and you called it shoplifting, I'd say that's a reasonable thing to call it even though the definition of shoplifting is by most accounts the theft of goods (money not being typically considered goods).
Secondly, let's actually look at some definitions of violence, since you've apparently decided semantics is so vital to the conversation here.
Violence is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against a person
... an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws
Strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force.
Most definitions I look at seem to include what I described as being violent. So there doesn't even seem to be a basis for arguing semantics here if that was even appropriate.
Quite frankly LW, I think this was an extremely pedantic argument.
Author
Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread (Read 1290719 times)