Language is a sword, and your opponent knows it
There are certain words presently in vogue that are used with dumbfounding frequency and aggression. ‘Nazi’ and a few related terms have been driven into oblivion as a metaphor. ‘Clown’ got old for me in about two seconds. But there is one word beat within an inch of its life that should be examined before it too goes to the lexicon graveyard: terrorism or terrorist.
The left – and yes, it is almost exclusively the left – in its zeal to tar its entire opposition in maximalist rhetoric, have applied this term with reckless abandon. It was only a few years ago when it meant something very specific to most people as it was applied primarily to Islamic militants either attempting mass casualty events or something as limited as a televised beheading of some hostage. Decades ago, militants from around the world engaged in hostage and murderous undertakings and the term ‘terrorism’ was not commonly used though it could have been. That – by my estimation – changed gradually by the 80s and 90s. Before that, the one event that shifted the entire Western world’s mentality was the 1972 Munich massacre of eleven Israeli Olympic athletes. Through events like the Iranian hostage crisis during Jimmy Carter’s term and later, the World Trade Center attacks and hundreds of smaller atrocities cut from similar templates, we all clearly understood what terrorism was, that is until woke Democrats came along.
So what did ‘terrorist’ used to mean? Mind you, this is not an academic exercise; this is how a majority of common people understood it. It simply meant this: acts of coercion and violence against innocent and uninvolved people used to amplify a political message to others. Sounds straightforward right? One would think. Every element of this definition is important and though humans do very bad things to other humans, there are other names and descriptors for those many other acts. Because the concept of terrorism was often associated with extremely horrific events, the woke Democrat left decided the word was useful beyond its traditional meaning. Why call a murder simply a crime when it could be elevated to ‘terrorist’ status and make a convoluted case to attribute the cause to their political opponents? There are many thousands of murders in this country each year. Each year, only a tiny minority of them, if any, are remotely terror related but why let those deaths go to waste when you can appropriate them to advance your political cause?
Mass shootings are now in the news a lot now and have become a slam dunk favorite event for the left to invoke terrorism. There are a lot of problems with this tactic. Apart from drug and gang wars, there are three factors that appear in almost every case of mass shootings: 1) Verified mental/emotional issues; severe enough to be known by professionals, parents, schools, or law enforcement 2) similar to #1, in almost all mass casualty events, knowledge of instability, criminal record, and even active surveillance was carried out by law enforcement, the FBI, school administrations, parents, relatives, friends but they failed in the most basic vigilance and follow through, even neglecting to flag them from gun purchases. 3) To the extent that there is any known ideological record, it is shockingly often left wing, even if the targets were a demographic that politicians and media have attempted to paint as victims of Republicans or conservatives. The high-profile victims may be black, but the hate filled shooter was a Bernie Bro; the victims were gay but so was the shooter, a jilted gay in fact; but after the shooting and his death, he’s miraculously transformed into a ‘rightwing terrorist’. It’s extremely rare when the narrative fits the lazy media stereotype of a rightwing sane radicalized perp that killed a target group according to ideology. Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombing may have been the last true terrorist event of that description.
Now, in the annals of woke, 2021 through the present (The Bidening) has seen the concept expanded dramatically. A parent scolding a school board over woke deceit was enough for the FBI to investigate such speech as terrorism. No guns were brandished, no hostages taken, no heads were separated from their bodies except figuratively. Attorney General Garland investigates the protests and free speech as ‘terrorism’.
Speech may in fact be the new woke primary meaning for the word ‘terrorism’. When your ideology has no logical or satisfactory answer to the cross-examination being widely disseminated to the public, extraordinary coercion becomes the only tool in your toolbox to prevent that exposure. If you’re a desperate leftist, calling your opponent a terrorist for exposing your radical woke foolishness can be pretty effective at first. Their justified humiliation is all the incentive they need to tar you.
We need the real connotation of the word ‘terrorist’ to be widely known and understood. as its original meaning was useful to understand very specific threats to innocent people. I’m not optimistic the word will survive in that form. However, it’s even more important to far more people to understand the misappropriation of the word ‘terrorist’ by the woke left. You can expect them to wage a full assault against you with the word.