We need a new word for terrorism

Today's column was going to be about the unbelievable July 1st celebration in Omaha I was fortunate enough to attend with friends until the London bombings happened on Thursday. I'll write about the celebration next week. The bombings certainly overshadow everything else going on in the world today.

The most recent numbers in regards to the bombings indicate that four different explosions in London killed at least 50 people and injured more than 700. The Brits went from absolute euphoria after London was granted the 2012 Olympics to the depths of despair after the bombings. It was literally an entire nation's shared bipolar experience. But I'm not going to focus on the bombings in this column. Because I'm a Sociologist by trade, I prefer to look at the people who carried them out. Hence, the name of today's column.

I think it's time we coined a new word or used a different word to replace "terrorists." What some people call terrorists, others call freedom fighters. This has been going on across the planet for centuries. It's too noble a term. It suggests a passion for a cause regardless of whether that cause is nationalism, patriotism, religious fervor or the like. It suggests people willing to sacrifice their own lives for something bigger than themselves and to experience some sort of social, political, or religious divinity while doing it. That word, that definition, that awareness gives these people much too much stature and respect.

People who work in law enforcement have been exposed to these kinds of low-lifes forever. They're nothing more than thugs, low-lifes, cretans, scumbags, perps, actors, wackos, sickos, and all the other terms law enforcement has traditionally used to describe what amounts to nothing more than yellow-bellied cowardice.

We see these kinds of actions occurring in most cities across the country and there is not a single thing that separates our "thugs" from their "thugs." They all sneak around and stalk around and do their mischief surreptitiously for their own personal reasons and it doesn't make any difference what those reasons are. When any of us seek revenge or personal satisfaction for any act or thought using extralegal means, we have violated the Social Contract and adopted a mob mentality, whether it's one or many.

That's what Timothy McVeigh did when he blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. That's what happened on September 11, 2001. That's what the BTK killer did in Wichita over a span of years and that's what the guy who was recently convicted in McCook of vandalizing automobiles to the tune of several thousand dollars did.

They all share a basic commonality. They have no respect for others. They have no respect for the rule of law. They have no respect for the Social Contract. They have no respect for anything other than their own sick and misguided desires.

Some of you may be thinking it makes no difference what we call these people but I think it does. When we use soft or noble names to define lawlessness, it gives some people a mindset that helps justify the terrible things they do. We need to call people what they are. And these people who are blowing up things and people are nothing more than common street criminals posing as someone else. Language is powerful. Language alters and influences the way we see the world and live in the world. It alters the way we think about others and the way they think about us.

We should never again give these thugs any reason to think what they are doing has any redeemable social value at all. Calling these barbaric acts terrorism and the people who do them terrorists gives them a credibility they do not deserve and should not have.

We will never be able to go back to pre-terrorism days and our world has been changed forever because of it.

No one anywhere will ever be able to feel completely safe and secure again because of what these acts have done to our individual and collective psyche. It would not surprise me at all to see an attack in some small town in the near future just as a way of showing us that no one is immune from their barbaric acts.

But even as the attacks continue, the one thing we can do that might be as effective as barricades and bullets is to give no credibility at all to what they do. They are nothing more than thugs.

And what they do is thugism, not terrorism.