Let's Get Rid of the Word "Terror"

This morning I woke up to the news that four men, some of whom were Muslim, were arrested for "aspirational" plans to target synagogues in New York in a terror attack.

I'm very wary.

When did law enforcement get involved with the alleged plotters and how did their involvement help bring the plan closer to fruition? It's called entrapment and it's too common with these kinds of investigations.

And why on earth would police brief Rep. Peter King, a robust Muslim-hating politician, who has rebuffed repeated invitations to visit with members of the mosque located in his own congressional district, opting instead for accusations that any mosque harbors militant terrorists?

Which leads me to this request: let's get rid of these phrases "war on terror," "terrorist attack," and terrorist, too. These words are hyperbolic and don't communicate ideas, but emotional responses that turn off thinking. Yes, we have a problem. Yes, there are some people who want to destroy our way of life, but that isn't terrorism. It's political opposition that uses techniques that introduce instability and insecurity. That isn't terror. That's life. Random acts of violence are about as much a part of life as random acts of kindness and always have been.

I'm reading Columbine by Dave Cullen, which unhysterically examines what happened in that Colorado high school when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on students and teachers that April day in 1999. It wasn't a feud with the jocks, or satanic worship; it wasn't a bunch of misfits, or the trench coat mafia. It was a psychopathic young man, Harris, and a very depressed and angry friend, Klebold, who fed off each other. It's called a dyad in psychology. Psychopathy is neither insanity nor sanity, but a category of human behavior based on a total lack of empathy, superiority, and the thrill, like drug addiction, accompanying early acts of violence. Eric Harris killed because he felt superior and wanted an audience. Kleibold hung around for the ride.

Added to the motives of the killers themselves was enormous incompetence of police, who could have prevented the incident that killed twelve children and a teacher, along with the suicides of Harris and Klebold, the ineptitude of journalists, and the crazy impact of twenty-four hour news cycles. That wasn't terror. It was our own children turning onto themselves and others with many opportunities to stop them although regrettably not to stop the disease of psychopathy.

Fear makes people stupid, so let's stop using Dick Cheney's vocabulary and start speaking realistically about the people who don't like America, no matter who they are, what religion they practice, and what they look like.