Wrong use of term "rebel"

Just because the rebels don't look like they'll win doesn't mean they won't. The media calling them rebels constitutes bias IMHO.

I'm not sure why 'rebel' implies they will lose. They are rebelling against the status quo of the last ~40 years. That makes them rebels.

It just sounds that way. People who lose are called 'rebels', while those who win are called 'revolutionaries'. You can't call Washington a rebel.

Why not? He was, after all.

Because they just don't... :P There isn't a reason. :)

Ah, but that's kind of my point. We aren't 'them'.

But since it's the way it is, rebels are associated with losers. HK sources mainly use 'opposition' instead of 'rebels'.

"I'm not sure why 'rebel' implies they will lose. They are rebelling against the status quo of the last ~40 years. That makes them rebels."

But 'rebels', in common usage, is used for those who lose. This implication is unrelated to the definition of the word itself.

I dispute that. Your examples, so far, have been in the past tense. The news is written in the present tense.

Maybe, I guess.

A Rebel in my opinion is someone who rejects a generally accepted thing, protocol, principle etc, but the Lybian "rebels" are rejecting dictatorism. Just my opinion, we could go look in the Oxford dictionary for exact definition of the term "rebel". Nolween (talk) 11:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)