If I had my way there are two terms upon which I'd have the media place a moratorium, those being lone wolf and radical extremist. The first is used as promiscuously by media talking heads as some millenials use the word "like." Listening to media grandees discuss terrorist incidents is a variation on the infamous Chinese water torture. One finds oneself gritting one's teeth in anticipation of the next mention of a "lone wolf" much as the torture victim tenses himself in anticipation of the next drop of water striking his head with the force of a hammer. Surely the vocabularies of these ladies and gentlemen is not so depauperate as to prohibit them from employing from time to time a synonym.
The second term, radical extremist, is simply inapt. Islamic terrorists who seek to kill non-Muslims are no more radical extremists than are Christian Amishman or missionaries radical extremists. The pacifist Amishman and the evangelical missionary are simply trying to live out what they believe the New Testament calls Christians to do. They're seeking to emulate the one whose followers they desire to be. In precisely the same way the Islamic terrorist is simply striving to fulfill the injunctions imposed upon him by the Koran, among which are the duty to hate the infidel and kill him wherever he can, and to emulate the example of violence and terror set by the one whose followers they desire to be. The Islamic terrorist is not an extremist, he's a purist.
----------
There's been another tragic police shooting. A female police officer appears to have shot and killed an unarmed man, apparently for no very good reason. It's national news now, and the Federal Department of Justice is even investigating. This is interesting because a couple of years ago in a town near where I live another female officer shot and killed an unarmed man, apparently for no very good reason, and it never became more than a local story and no federal investigation took place. So what's the salient difference between the two cases? Why does the media promote one story into the national headlines and onto nationwide evening news shows but not the other one?
Could it be that it's because the media never misses an opportunity to stir up racial hostility? I ask this because the only difference between the earlier case and the more recent one is that, although in both instances the officer was a white female, in the earlier case the victim was a white male and in the latter case he was a black male. Apparently, it's media policy when a cop kills a white man to yawn and roll over, but when a cop kills a black man, the media rouses itself to herald the news so that maybe they can incite a protest or, with luck, a violent riot. I know this sounds harsh, but what else could be their motive for treating these two stories so differently?
The fact is that the media is largely a liberal institution and the left has a vested interest in keeping the racial pot simmering. Racial unrest and dissatisfaction gets other liberals elected to political office, aggrandizes the left's power, and gives media folks lots of conflict narratives, their favorite theme, to write and talk about. Racial tension is not so good for the rest of us, but it's bread and butter for liberal politicos and journalists.
