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[Kay12]

There was a Christian paramilitary group caught recently, they were planning to shoot up a police station. But yeah, terrorists seldom rise to defend status quo.

[Svirfneblim]

People defending status quo can often get away with terror without being labeled terrorists, regardless of what status quo we're talking about.

As for a fun premise for a game like LCS, the USA militia movement and groups of similar sorts is a goldmine of fun gaming, including a whole mythology about things they oppose - one world government, black helicopters, mind control and so on. A game made by liberals(or non conspiracy theorist conservatives) but taking a POV of such a group would include, perhaps, not Reaganization but incorporating the USA into the UN led by antichrist or something. Like in 'Left Behind'.

[Funk]

terrorism, it not what you do its how you do it to.

[mainiac]

What the SLA aspired to be was basically a left wing version of the various right wing militia groups.  The terrorism label isn't really important, the SLA was emulating right wing militia groups and hate crimes.  Except instead of going after "baby killers" they were going after "fascists"

[Servant Corps]

It's a mess here in the states. Militarism and isolationism are both Conservative, while pacifism and internationalism are both Liberal. Different people on each side take those ingredients in different proportions, and they're influenced by current events (and tend to get angry at the other side, no matter what they do). So sometimes, Liberals rail against Conservative military actions (Iraq, Afghanistan), while other times Conservatives rail against Liberal military actions (Libya, Kuwait). Right now we have the Republican Party (Conservatives) in Congress threatening to withhold authorization to continue the operation in Libya, demanding that President Obama (Liberal) justify how this can possibly be legal and what the policy reasons are for this military adventurism. It's a bit bizarre, actually, but it makes for good spectator sport.

On an unrelated note, this quote gave me a good idea for the CCS: attempting to make coherent two incohernet strains of liberal/conservate foreign policy. The idea of a L+ President leading a world police unit who attack random dictatorships with hallucinogenic gas and loudspeakers while a C+ President creates the BEST ARMY KNOWN TO MAN who does nothing except stand at the US border and check passports...sounds interesting to me. I just need to make sure that this is indeed what L+/C+ people want; right now, I'm reading the Republican and Democratic platforms of 2008 and trying to decode what they say.

[Kay12]

Another option for the Liberals would be almost completely replacing the army with a loose defensive coalition with other states that will do the same. Some 20000 elite soldiers protecting American soil... as well as Swedish, Portuguese and German soil. Efficient and clean, as long as you don't actually have to fight, that is.

[Reelyanoob]

In fact, I'd think Toady make it the game focused around liberals because he has a real-life example to base them on, the Symbionese Liberation Squad and many communist terrorist groups all over Europe to a lesser extent.

On the flipside, I'm unaware of there having ever been "conservative" terrorist groups.

1. French govt agents blowing up the Greenpeace flagship with a planted bomb, while docked in New Zealand

2. Orlando Bosch / Luis Posada Carrilles blowing up Cuban Airlines plane, planted bomb. They have right-wing combat training camps in the woods in Florida for these groups. Carriles has even publically boasted about terrorist attacks.

3. IRA bombers (ultra-catholic)

4. Right-wing Contra rebels attacks on the govt of Nicaragua, including massacring civilians, planting bombs.

5. Right-wing para military attacks on civilians in Colombia. Assassinations, Chainsawing your kids in half, etc. Need we say more. USA formally declared the paras to be a terrorist organisation, during the Clinton years (formally forgiven by Bush).

6. El Salvador - right wing death squads murdered the Catholic Arch-Bishop for promoting liberalism, while he was giving mass, standing over the alter, holding the eucharist wine (which mixed with his blood and spilt all over the alter!). Everybody else got far worse :- eg. gang rape your young daughter, then kill her by a face full of acid. I've seen photos of this. Well, the after photos, not before.

7. KKK lynching and attacks. Definitely political (keeping the black man down). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan .Terrorists.

8. Nazi terrorist activities, including blowing up parliament (Reichstag) to blame jews ands commies.

etc (I could probably double or triple this list, but you get the point)

I would say these groups have more of a conversative rather than 'liberal' world view (as I would for Muslim terrorists too), not one of these groups could be called 'liberal' in any form.

Sure, we could make a game where you play the KKK for example. Not most peoples idea of 'fun' though. Kooky "Tea Party" conservative terrorists, OTOH could be fun.

[Servant Corps]

Meanwhile, in my quest to come up with a list of CCS issues, I've found very little (official) difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties on foreign policy. They agree on a lot of stuff: pro-Israeli, pro-human rights, anti-AIDS, anti-Myanmar dictatorship, pro-"Russia must respect the territorial integrity of its neighbors" blah blah blah...These platforms really are written by party hacks. The only timeless* differences between the two parties I can detect appear to be:

Cuba: Republicans support continued sanctions. Democrats support abolishing sanctions on Cuba contingent on Cuba embarking on democratic reforms and unconditionally releasing all political prisoners, while also unconditionally allowing unlimited family visits and remittances to the island.

Trade: Both Democrats and Republicans support "free trade" and "fair trade" (both want trading to be done on an "equal" playing field, which appears to be one that favors or at least neutral to American products), though while the Republicans believe free trade to be "more American jobs, higher wages, and a better standard of living ... a matter of national security and an instrument to promote democracy and civil society in developing nations"...the Democrats tend to want to have Free Trade benefit all segments of society, not just the very wealthy and are against "unfair trade practices–including currency manipulation, lax consumer standards, illegal subsidies, and violations of workers' rights and environmental standards". Democrats desire a renegotiation of NAFTA (which Republicans do not address in their platform) and for the US government to more aggressively negotiate on its behalf and refuse to accept free trade agreements that would enable or allow "unfair trade practices". Republicans wants to restore the "trade promotion authority" to make FTAs easier to be approved, and are insistent on getting the US Senate to approve an FTA with Colombia (the Democrats do not directly address either demand in their platform).

International Organizations: The Republican Party is not against international organizations are are willing to work within them, but they cannot serve as "a substitute for principled American leadership". The Democratic Party believes that the UN is deeply corrupt and is need of reform, however, they feel that international organizations need to be strengthened to deal with major problems and calls on the US to rededicate itself and focus on the United Nations and other international organizations as the best way to reform them.

The Republicans are outright opposed to the UN convention on women's rights and the UN convention on the rights of the child because those two conventions do not respect "fundamental institutions of marriage and family". The Republicans also hold several reservations about the Law of the Sea Treaty due to "our concern for US sovereignty and America's long-term energy needs". The Democrats do not have any positions on any of these treaties, but they are in favor of ratification of the "U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" which will "restore the original intent of the Americans with Disabilities Act".

The Republican Party is also against accepting the ICJ's jurisdiction over America, in order to protect servicemen from being prosecuted. Democrats do not mention anything on this issue.

This issue does ties somewhat into the Abortion Question: the Republicans support "the Mexico City Policy" (which is basically the federal government refusing to fund NGOs "that provide abortions or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other countries"), while the Democrats are against this policy (one of Obama's first actions was repealing the "Mexico City Policy"). One of these NGOs that have funding effected is the United Nations Population Fund. But I don't really think this is all that important though, as this sort of dispute is likely already covered by Abortion Law.

Sources:
Republican Platform, 2008
Democrat Platform, 2008

*Meaning that these issues won't go away any time soon. For example, technically withdrawal from Iraq will no longer be a political issue in the USA once the US "withdraws" from Iraq. (Neither party was advocating for total withdrawal though in 2008; even the Democrats support a "residual force in Iraq to perform specific missions").

[Yannanth]

.

[Reelyanoob]

1. Not a terrorist movement. But I would believe that Greenpeace is quite liberal.

I'm not talking about the actions of Greenpeace. I'm specifically talking about the French *government* ordering the terrorist attack on liberal targets. The fact Greenpeace is "quite liberal" is the point. Their enemies targeted them for their liberalism. Specifically because greenpeace spoke out against French nuclear testing in the pacific. look up "Rainbow Warrior" on wiki.

2. Against Castro? These Cuban exiles are not exclusively in the right...

I'm not following the logic here, my point was that the right-wing Cuban exiles did terrorist attacks against the nation of Cuba. They are clearly terrorists, even taking credit for the bombings. Can't you google what I'm saying to check the details yourself. Ok look up "Cubana Flight 455" on wiki for the history. They year was 1976, and the bomb killed 73 civilians.

5. I agree, although these guys were supposedly taking revenge. These people most certainly did not have a political agenda, if you're talking about 1980s Colombia and the drug lord Pablo Escobar!

Jesus you really need to read about colombian politics! This has nothing to do with Pablo Escobar or drug cartels or revenge.
I'm talking illegal right-wing government hit-squads who target *everybody* on the "liberal" side of the spectrum. pro tip: IT'S STILL HAPPENENING, now, at a rate of 100's or 1000's of victims a year.

I'm talking the outright murder of 1000's of journalists, trade unions, doctors, judges, uni professors, lawyers, human rights activists, unemployed people etc. And that's *just* since 2002. Please do some research before saying this is not happening. More trade union members are assassinated each year in Colombia that ALL OTHER COUNTRIES COMBINED.
     - read the websites of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters without Borders regarding Colombia.

6. Death squads are not necessarily right-wing. The Salvadoran economy was actually barely privatised at the time. I have no idea why people associate military juntas and so on with the right wing.

You're seriously saying the Salvadoran junta wasn't right-wing ? you'd be at odds with history there. Destroying the left was their #1 target. The man who ordered the assasinations later founded the countries conservative/right-wing party "ARENA". FMLN were the underground opposition to the regime, they're elected into government right now, and considered the left-wing party.

Nikolai Yudenich was a general in the army of Imperial Russia. He was quite certain he'd lose all his influence and standing if the Bolsheviks seized power completely, so he raised an army in Latvia over a year or so. He raised an army,...

Reading the history, Nikolai Yudenich doesn't fit the general definition of terrorism at all. He had backing of an exile government, raised an army, and fought land battles to gain cities trying to ovethrow the bolsheviks. That's civil war, not terrorism by definition.

Terrorism has it's most core definition of using violence to create "terror" in a population, to further political or ideological goals. This was not what Yudenich did at all. If we broaden the definition to involve raising an army against the central government, then we'd have to call the Confederates in the American Civil War "terrorists" too, like Yudenich.

[Kay12]

Terrorism has it's most core definition of using violence to create "terror" in a population, to further political or ideological goals.

Thanks for reminding me about the question I've been meaning to ask a long time: is "terrorism" an actual crime in itself, in America? I'd classify most of the stuff LCS does as terrorism, but the only thing called "terrorism" ingame is the nuclear plant thing. If I even finish these bombs I'm coding, they'll probably fall in the same category.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I don't think there's an actual crime called terrorism in America. It makes sense for the game though.

Of the current crimes, bombing could be arson, murder, and/or terrorism, depending on the type of bomb and its effects.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

It's a mess here in the states. Militarism and isolationism are both Conservative, while pacifism and internationalism are both Liberal.

Oh hey, check this out. The 2008 Republican candidate criticizes the 2012 Republican candidates for being too isolationist. McCain criticizes Republican candidates for advocating 'isolationism.'

"This is isolationism. There's always been an isolation strain in the Republican Party," McCain said. "But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak."

Seriously, weird stuff seems to happen when a Democrat in the White House gets involved in a war.

[Kay12]

Technically, any specific agenda can't be labeled as universally liberal/conservative - liberals are just more progressive and conservatives more traditional. A liberal and a conservative may even have very similar political views.

However, in the sense of Liberals and Conservatives (note the Caps), the difference is very much more concrete

[mainiac]

Seriously, weird stuff seems to happen when a Democrat in the White House gets involved in a war.

It's sort of a weird balancing act before they decide to commit to complete isolationism or complete aggressiveness.  Newt Gingrich on Libya is an amazing specimen but you can see it less dramatically on the campaign in Yugoslavia (isolationism), Vietnam (aggressiveness) or WWII (isolationism).  I think it's just a minority party syndrome however; the democrats did the same dance over Iraq, waffling back and forth for years.