Cynics Unlimited

A violent plot was recently foiled in Maryland. A bomb was set to detonate in a civilian building, followed by a mass shooting of the building’s inhabitants. The motivation was political in nature, as the attacker disagreed with the policies and activities of individuals located in the building. The accused, a 25 year old man, will be in court Monday to face federal weapons charges.

Sounds like terrorism so far, right?

Read the MSNBC report:

GREENBELT, Md. - The father of a man accused of plotting to bomb an abortion clinic said he felt he had no choice but to contact police about his son’s activities. Robert Weiler Sr. told The Washington Post for an article published Saturday that the decision was agonizing, but that “our concern was just to make sure nobody got hurt.

Weiler planned to use the bomb and a gun to “shoot doctors who provided abortions,” according to an affidavit filed Thursday in federal court by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He called the ATF from the rest stop where he was arrested and later confessed to the plot, authorities said.

Of course, in today’s selectively paranoid e-world, the MSM (mainstream media) cannot be trusted because they are agents of special interests; the real story can only come from individuals who type on home computers. So where is the outrage? Where the outrage is NOT is more the story. Very little commentary on this foiled terrorist plot has appeared in the more vocal anti-terrorist blogs (and I say “many” because obviously I could not check every single anti-terrorist blog, but the ones I did check had nothing on Maryland). Yet physical confrontations at a native blockade apparently warrant comparison to the widespread Islamacist campaign against the West. Failing to blindly support the aggression du jour can also find one labeled a terrorist “sympathizer”.

This small exercise simply enforces the notion that the terrorism label is simply a function of perceived legality and the palatability of the cause. With such double-standards, it’s difficult for any fair-minded person to get too excited about the enduring non-MSM hysteria concerning terrorism.

Other Views on the Maryland Bomb Plot:

• Shakespeare’s Sister sees the scant attention paid to the Maryland plot as a symptom of a fatalistic cultural shift to the right: “This is what happens when we, as a culture, tolerate eliminationist rhetoric and treat it as legitimate discourse. I wish liberals would get half as exercised about the steady stream of eliminationist speech directed at us as the wingnuts do about the phrase ‘Happy Holidays.’ “
• Peregrin Wood of Irregular Times cited partisanship in the apparent double standard applying the terrorist label: “In the view of the Bush Administration, nonviolent progressive activists who disagree with George W. Bush are more of a threat than right wingers who plan to kill Americans with bombs.”