Many people like to pose questions when getting to know someone.  I was recently asked by a potential suitor what I think about the state of affairs in the world.  We are living in times when even a rainstorm could be given nuanced debate regarding whether the raindrops actually occurred and if the word "storm" is offensive at best or masculine at worst.

In the same way that parents who enable drug-addicted offspring are worse than the drug-dealers, academic intellectuals are worse than the Taliban.  Terrorists and drug-dealers share the commonality of more often than not stating their intentions and following through with clear actions, sans nuance, sans deliberation, and sans contemplation.  Driveling academic intellectuals pave the way for threats on the United States to materialize.  Enabling parents provide money and foster entitlement for their offspring to sustain a drug habit.  Academic intellectuals provide distraction and smokescreens as they turn a plain-as-day fight between good and evil, survival and death, into a Socratic discussion, with verbal layers delicately peeled by minds that canvassed many textbooks. 

During a series of news updates, Friday, August 20, 2021, witty words of meaningful dialogue flowed.  From sea to shining sea, our government scheduled an emergency meeting for...Monday, August 23, 2021!  "First thing Monday morning," says the national security adviser with a glare in his eyes and filler in his face.  Monday, not Friday, not Friday night, Saturday, nor Sunday would be sacrificed for those sacrificing for us.  Sometime Monday morning was soon enough.  Sometime Monday morning was set to strategize rescuing our stranded Americans in Afghanistan.  We got to see a level of patriotism that matches the Greatest Generation's vigor to fight the Nazis after watching Hitler's propaganda films.  Not quite.  We the People were privy to another press conference.  At this press conference, we saw verbal jockeying over the word "stranded."  Our American troops' and civilians' safety are in jeopardy, yet the only pushback at that press conference was on a word choice by a reporter.

Instead of national unity, we have a global bail reform in play.  Terrorists slither through our borders.  ICE is given the same level of diminished power as our police.  Videos of the Taliban wearing our uniforms stream into our mounted flat-screen TVs, and at the same time, our government creates a watch list of Trump-supporters opposed to mail-in voter fraud.  So much rich material to ponder, and just in time for all the fall semester and think-tank gatherings.  Socratic circles will form on one side of the world's football field, no mission stated.  Weapon-toting beheaders are waiting on the other infield, with a mission stated and in play. 

Perhaps, to solve this endless problem, we need hate terrorism in the same way we have hate crime.  That way, motive — not threats, not deeds — will become the overarching issue.  As terrorists plot to bludgeon the USA, Marxists plan to bludgeon freedom in the USA, and China plans to kill us, enlightened conversationalists can discuss motive rather than being bogged down by actual events.

Image: PxFuel.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.