I know it’s too early on a Friday for deep thinking. Bear with me. My last post was pondering the character of men/women and how you make choices for political candidates. Basically, how do you define good character and the implications it has on voting practices when you see bad character but a great political platform (Kokesh, I still think you’re a tool). I think this is probably pretty relevant because elected officials with totally crappy personal character are falling left and right in Washington, DC. Do we voters need to do some better vetting of our candidates and choose those we truly believe will be honorable and represent voters with dignity and courage and virtue? Anyway, this post is gonna be about the opposite of good character.

I read this opinion piece and started thinking about “How do you define a ‘terrorist?’” Extremist I can understand. But when does an extremist morph into a terrorist? Is it, as claimed by the author, solely based on skin color/religion?

Being the opinionated person I am, I thought I’d share my own thoughts and leave you with some questions.

Arsalan Iftikhar starts off his essay with a statement that I take exception to:

Within the last month, our country has witnessed two senseless, high-profile acts of criminal violence that would have been labeled terrorism if brown-skinned Arab Muslim men with foreign-sounding names had committed them.

I actually take exception to this because what I have seen in the media, when a person of the same citizenship/color/religion attacks his or her OWN GOVERNMENT AND COUNTRY, they are usually labeled an “insurgent.” Do a google search of that word and look at how many stories there are from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.

My opinion is that a terrorist is defined by the fact that he or she wants to commit the highest level of chaos by targeting those that don’t suspect violence is at their doorstep. Average, every day citizens. The Stop ‘n Go gas station clerk. The Walmart worker. The broker working at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 102 floor of a building in NYC. A terrorist will target those so as to create an atmosphere in a greater area of fear and uncertainty. When 9/11 happened, every American wondered if his or her small community, job, office building, farm house could be the random target of death and destruction.

The two white examples that Iftikhar uses had specific grievances with our government (although one was totally off his f’ing rocker). They took on those targets that represented the things they found wrong with our country, government, etc. There would not have been a small resonance in America when Joseph Stack flew his plane into an IRS office building if there isn’t the perception that somewhere, somehow, our government has lost its way and the IRS represents the leech by which the greater entity sucks our lifeblood. I don’t agree with what he did and how he did it. Let me make that clear. But if the founders of this country didn’t think that government can become abusive, they never would have used the phrase “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it…” in the Declaration of Independence. The list of grievances is long in that piece of paper. Further down, the signers of the Declaration put their name to something that included this, “In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.”

They had had enough and they weren’t taking it anymore. And they formulated and executed an insurrection of epic proportions.

Let me repeat that….it was an INSURRECTION.

Terrorism would have been random colonists boating over to England to bomb banks or markets or whipping out a musket to shoot up a group of school children to make a point that the Colonies were not happy with the way things were.

Do you see my distinction?

So my questions to you….do you think Lee Malvo was a terrorist? He randomly shot people in and around Washington, DC with no method to his madness. Do you think Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist? He killed kids in a preschool at the McMurrah building but he had a grievance with the government. Do you think an American Muslim who shoots up the Pentagon would be given the same treatment in the press as whacked out John Bedell? If targeting government type targets preclude the terrorist label, does that mean military targets such as the USS Cole don’t count as terrorism? (I actually have thoughts on that too, but I have to take my kids to school now so I’ll leave it to you to debate in comments and I’ll throw my opinion in there if anyone wants to take up that discussion).

Again, some ponderings to keep your thoughts occupied for the weekend. No one responded to my last post and I’m not sure if it’s because the topic is boring, stupid, or just a waste of time. If this is interesting to you….thought exercises, speak up and let’s talk about it.

(EDIT: There was a migration in the blog to a new server and I think the default setting of no comments has stuck for new posts. I fixed it for this one, so if you have thoughts you want to share, please do. It was an oversight that I asked for opinions and then gave you no avenue to do it. Really, I’m not THAT closed minded. haha)