As the towers fell and the bodies of our friends and loved ones lay among the rubble, we wanted answers and demanded to know who had attacked us.

What was important was that those who had attacked us had been terrorists – those who wished to destroy or greatly change our country by means of violence.  Not the color of their skin, not their country of origin, not the means by which they worship their concept of creation, but the organization and the political/social beliefs which held that they had the right to use a violent means to overthrow or effect our government.

Instead of concentrating on the terrorist cell and its’ ideology, political pundits suggested that it wasn’t just radical political views that should be denounced, they suggested that an entire religion and an entire ethnicity be blamed for the acts of these 19 men.  That all of Islam and every person born in the Middle East of Arab descent should be forced to pay the blood libel for the crimes of a handful of extremists who demanded change through violence.

There were some politicians and religious leaders grabbed onto the concept with both hands in order to promote that other is evil, that anything that is not “of the body” was to be feared.  If you are not just as they are, white, Christian and right-wing than you are to be feared and hated.  Any questioning, any debate, any descent was to be put down and put down hard.  If you weren’t willing to hate, you were worthy of being hated.  If you weren’t willing to allow them to act on their actions against all others, you were discriminating against their right… to hate.

Long-time friendships dissolved because someone suggested that torturing nine year old children was wrong.  Family members disowned each other because they would rather hold on to the myth that a president was a foreigner than to their relationships to their own kin.

Because we did not demand the right questions in those tragic days in September, those with agendas framed the argument so that the American people were always looking in the wrong place for the next punch.  Because it’s so much easier and more comforting to think that those looking to destroy you are easy to spot because they are other.  But that’s the reasoning of children that the bad guy always wears a black hat. 

For those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear, we have heard the screams of those who admit hating our government, who wish to secede, who are willing to spill the blood of Americans.  And they are not other.  They are right here.  Those who call for the death of members of the government, from the president on down are inciting political assassination. Those who call for secession or a new Civil War are inciting treason and sedition. Those who suggest that if they don’t get what they want through the ballot and are willing to kill other Americans are no different than the terrorists overseas that call for the same thing.  And those who act on that anger and hatred of our government are no better than the 19 men who committed the atrocities on 9/11.

There is an in-depth list of the acts of domestic terrorism and sedition that has occurred in this country over the past few years and it’s staggering.  And if we used the right’s logic of looking at the color of their skin and their religion we would spend our time fearing and loathing all white, Christian conservatives. And that would merely make us as foolish as those labeling all Muslims terrorists, all liberals G-dless and claiming all blacks stick up for one another.

Yesterday, a man filled with hatred of anyone other, who had listened to the pundits and the politicians attack an entire religion, went out and attacked a temple full of people, of the wrong religion.  These dear people had harmed no one.  Their only crime was being other in a country where political leaders and pundits use religions and races as whipping boys to excuse their own ignorance and bigotry.  And to hide the truth that those, no matter what their race, what their religion, what their political party who call for blood-shed if they don’t get their way at the ballot box, who call for the death of lawfully elected officials, who call for secession from this country are just as much terrorists as the men who brought down the towers. 

We do have a war on terrorism, one which we have not yet begun to fight.  Americans killing people for having a different religion or a different color are merely bigoted terrorists.  By shedding blood through a terrorist act they have renounced the Constitution which states that all men are created equal.  Those who proudly brag that they would utilize bullets to steal what was lawfully and Constitutionally guaranteed through the ballot are traitors and seditionists as they would violate the will of all the people for their own ends.  And those who incite such behavior for money and power, be they pundits or politicians are insurrectionists who have betrayed their country as surely as Benedict Arnold.  I have no question that Wade Michael Page thought, after having had the poison of ‘other is evil’ dripped in his ear for years, that he was acting like a first responder when in actuality, he was just another one of America’s own home grown Al Q’aida.  Same terrorist outcome, different face.

We need to stop looking for the easy answers and get real to the fact that there are those citizens who don’t believe in the will of the people, who don’t believe that all men are created equal.  They believe not in the ballot but, instead, in “might makes right”.  These are not people who believe in democracy.  And when they use violence or threaten violence against Americans, it is domestic terrorism.  It’s time to start calling it by its’ rightful name and dealing with it as such.  Only then can we really start effectively working on fighting terrorism, both foreign and domestic by addressing the violence and the hate.