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And it takes very little thought to clearly distinguish between a terrorist and a freedom fighter.
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Very true, but I feel that very few people in today's society take the time to have that very little thought.
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Terrorists kill indiscriminately to inflict maximum psychological damage through fear. I doubt seriously if many IEDs were set off in the streets of Boston or Philadelphia.
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I guess my point here is that IED's are not a terroristic weapon. Yes, they do instill fear, but so do machineguns and artilery. Really, artilery is much more "indescriminate" than IED's since those firing the artilery cannot even see their target. 99% of IED's are "Command Detonated" - meaning there is a guy watching the kill zone that pushes a button or calls a phone number when there is a target in said kill zone. As a man that fought in Iraq and had several close calls with IED's, I can assure you, they are scary and deadly, but not at all indiscrimnate. They are weapons used to kill/wound specific individuals and destroy/damage specific equipment. For example, a Claymore mine like the one's our military uses, are just comercially made IED's.
Regardless, my point is not that early American Freedom fighters were Terrorists - my point is that the definition of a "terrorist", "terrorist act", and "terrorism" in general is often misunderstood, expanded, and sometimes even misused to simply ilicit an emotional response - very much like the word "Communist" or "Communism" was used in the 50's and 60's.