Enemies of freedom and the truth use a powerful tool try to marginalize and discredit those who oppose them. That tool is name-calling. There are things that people, in general, abhor, such as violence, hatred, murder and theft. If those negative connotations can be attached to names, and those names attached to individuals, then those individuals will be viewed in a negative way, as having those bad attributes. Words such as fundamentalist, extremist, homegrown terrorist and hate criminal come to mind.

It certainly can be said that anyone who flies a plane into the side of a skyscraper has gone to the extreme, and violence, hatred, murder and theft do fit the description of their activities and attitudes. People should abhor that type of behavior. Those people truly are terrorists because they use their extreme activities to strike terror into the hearts of potential victims. Their behavior and attitudes become the embodiment of the word “extremism”. Everyone knows what they did and can relate to the negative feelings attached to the term. A lot of press has also been given to the implication that those terrorists were religious fundamentalists, radical Islamists. Those same negative feelings toward the actions of terrorists can thus be attached to words like fundamentalist, and radical.

Those words and phrases have been getting quite a workout in recent years. People who, in prior times, might have been just ordinary, concerned citizens may now be homegrown terrorists or religious fundamentalists. Those terms have been attached to people who hold to the traditional values which made America great, who value our unalienable rights, who speak out for freedom, who have strong religious convictions or who call for limited government in accordance with the Constitution of the United States. Those have all been listed as characteristics for legal authorities to watch for to identify people with tendencies toward extremism and homegrown terrorism.

There really is right and wrong, good and bad, a moral standard. Yes the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence really do call for strict limitation of centralized government, and leave all authority not specifically vested in it to the people and to the states. Yes, people are capable of running their own lives without a paternalist bureaucracy telling them what to do. Yes, people do have the right to do anything they want to with their life and their property as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same. It is not a matter of whether our lives, our businesses or our consciences should be regulated or not. It is a matter of who rightfully does the regulation. Central planners and political manipulators have demonstrated for millennia that they cannot successfully run other people’s lives. They can only impose their own prejudices and destroy freedom and prosperity.

Certainly people who injure or kill others or who destroy their property should be held accountable and punished accordingly. Those who do not injure, kill or destroy, however, should not be punished for those who do. They should not be presumed to be potential killers or thieves or criminals when they have not committed any crime.

Fortunately, the tactic of calling ordinary Americans names in the attempt to discredit and neutralize them has been overused. People are catching on and are repulsed by it. Indeed they should be. It is dishonest and offensive in its intent and in its practice. If there are issues to discuss, then discuss them to try to get to the truth and a common understanding. The underlying problem is that typically the truth is not the goal. Political power and control is the objective.

I have been termed a fundamentalist by some people, and I suppose that, in the original sense, it is true. There are certain things which, to me, are obviously and fundamentally true. Name calling and language manipulation don’t make them any less true. You too are invited to be an extremist, the kind who believes in limited government, unalienable rights of the people to their life, liberty and property (the original trilogy from John Locke, on whose principles the Declaration was based), who believes that “Congress shall make no law…” in the Bill of Rights really means that Congress shall not make laws abridging any of our rights. If we had 300 million such extremists in this country, maybe we wouldn’t have an elite political club which continually devises new ways to control and subject us to their will.