While driving home from work last night, the song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" popped into my head.  You remember that one, by Peter, Paul, and Mary, where picked flowers end up on the graves of soldiers.  As I hummed, I wondered, "What about the lone wolf terrorists?  Where have they gone?"

We were told by America's intellectual press that terrorism following 9/11 was the product of lone wolves.  There was no apparent coordination behind their acts, just misguided individuals who either misunderstood the Religion of Peace or were mentally ill.

Fast-forward to the Era of COVID.  People were told to lock themselves up, stay away from others, wear masks, don't work.  Life became a short list of what to do and a very long list of what not to do.  Terrorism wasn't on either list.  If a sane person could be driven nearly insane by having taken away from him much of what was normal, what kept the truly insane in check?  Did they somehow find sanity, or did they miss some restriction on insanity?

Recently, a form of terrorism from time past emerged, anarchist- and Marxist-inspired.  Taking advantage of the nationwide protesting of a local matter, its expression was in riots, the violent form of struggle.  Coordination seemed to be at hand, therefore it couldn't be labeled as the acts of lone wolves.  The terrorism that had been the work of scattered cells with coded messages and years of international planning then sold to us as lone wolves vanished.  What was old was now new; what was new disappeared.

No matter the attempt at salesmanship, America's terrorists aren't lone wolves or insane.  It seems that the terrorism brought to us by the Religion of Peace has declared an intermission.  Apparently, it's not worth committing murder and mayhem if everyone is locked up in his house rather than gathered.  There's no glory to be had.  Those terrorists went underground but will reappear at the time of their choosing.  They are part of a different civilization.  They are our long-term threat.

But thinking more broadly, terrorism can also be found where you should least expect it.  Speaking of wolves, we have one in Pennsylvania named Governor Wolf.  The terror he inflicts has been viral in nature and just as deadly to many.  Just ask the families of those who died in nursing homes when the infected were mixed with the uninfected and the general public roamed free within.  If we were honest, the cause listed on death certificates wouldn't read COVID, but rather terrorism.  But that by a lone wolf.