Yes We Must- Stand Against All Terror, Foreign AND Domestic

After ISIS attacked Paris, we stood pretty much united as Western Civilization against the acts of terrorism, condemning them and debating how to respond. While we questioned why we didn't respond as united, no one disagreed that the terror attacks in Beirut and Baghdad around the Paris attacks were terrorism that needed a response. They were politically motivated acts of violence, intent on spreading fear throughout society. That is terrorism. Whether it's ISIS, anti-abortion gunmen and bombers, militiamen, or some anti-government loners, terrorism is terrorism. The kind of person carrying it out does not matter. The specific breed of politics does not matter.

Which leads me to the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado Springs. This is an act of terrorism. That Robert Dear was a pro-life, white, Christian American does not make his shooting spree any less of an act of terror than what happened in Paris or Beirut. He carried out an act of violence with the intent of forcing other people to change their behavior in society out of fear. When you seek to use violence, rather than the ballot box, as a means of changing political decisions, you are a terrorist. When you seek to use violence to change the behavior of the public, rather than the civil means within our society, you are a terrorist. What exactly set Dear off on this shooting spree now is not important. His intent was to spread fear and change behavior through violence. He is a terrorist.

There is no place for people like Robert Dear. I don't care if they wish to set up an Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, end abortion in the United States, or stop the government from "over-reaching," when people do what Robert Dear did, we have to stop them. We have to stand against them. We have to fight that way of thinking. Now, this doesn't mean we should send U.S. Marines in to invade white, Christian communities here, anymore than we should re-invade Iraq right now, but we have to combat this strain of society. We should use the full line of tools at our disposal to do so. We can't ignore this type of terrorist, just because they are a white American.