The Many Faces of Terror
Terror isn’t just blowing people up. In fact, blowing people up is just one way to terrorise people. You can terrorise people through threats and hate speech — this is typically called “terroristic threatening“, and it’s actually illegal. You can go to jail for it.
That the crazy right-wing nutjob hatemongers and assorted douchebags who routinely spout off about how much they hate liberals or they’d really like to rape and/or kill a prominent tech blogger rarely suffer any consequences for engaging in explicit, public threats is a travesty of justice.
But not as much as when innocent people are being fired from their jobs and harassed by police for simply discussing an innocent hobby.
Matt Boyd (formerly of MacHall, now of Three Panel Soul) is fucking awesome. I loved MacHall, and his and Ian’s new comic is pretty awesome as well. But he got fired from his job for talking about buying a .22 rifle for target shooting, and for specifically discussing how he wanted a .22 because it would be pretty damned hard to use it to kill someone. At least, that’s how he tells it.
To be afraid of what you say because you might get fired on the spot for violating some arbitrary sensibility of a flightly coworker? Yeah, I’d call that being terrorised. But we’re living in a Culture of Terror now. We’re living in a world where LED depictions of cartoon characters constitute a bomb scare that makes national news, while an actual bomb placed at an abortion clinic barely makes it past a Reuters release that’s ignored by everybody except a few (rightly) outraged feminist blogs.
The Culture of Terror has some fucked up priorities. But it’s here, we’re in the middle of it, and it shows no signs of leaving.
If I have one thing to say about it, that would be to for God’s sake apply a little common sense and critical thought next time something you see or hear makes you shit your pants — maybe it isn’t a big deal, maybe it’s just a cartoon character or a legitimate hobby. The next thing would be to not get scared. Seriously, just don’t. It’s never a good idea, and it never helps.
Besides, if you get scared, the Terrorists Win. All the terrorists, whoever they may be: foreign, domestic, sensation-obsessed media, or self-interested politician.