"Radical" as a term is nondescript. Yes, Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Vladimir Lenin, all of them were radicals who did bad. Then there's Martin Luther King, Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglass, or those who wanted more worker's rights in the late 19th century were all considered radicals in their time. Politcally, a radical seems to be one who actively challenges and works against a social force that they deem or believe to be wrong. There are radicals I admire, and ones I revile. Those that sicken me on a larger base, though, are the ones who know there's injustice and good things they could be doing, but make no effort forward because they're scared of losing their precious convenience.

I particularly like this quote I read somewhere:


"This is why I have come, in these recent years, to despise these people (self-fashioned "moderates"). There is no abomination on this earth worth an emotional outburst, in their minds -- no conflict worth a raised voice. There is only the mushy, cowardly middle, one that never stands for anything too much or critiques anything too loudly. They all stink like fish, they have been praising the status quo for so long and so colorlessly -- and yet they fancy themselves intellectuals for it, and even presume themselves courageous for it."