Everybody's a Terrorist
You're a terrorist, I'm a terrorist, we're all terrorists! Hell, 16 year-old girls are terrorists:
An Ottumwa High School student has been charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism.
Police arrested Emily Kay Six, 16, Ottumwa, on Thursday. Officials said they began investigating after Six allegedly began trying to recruit students for what police called “a plan to harm a number of students.”
The charge is a Class D felony. Six was taken to a juvenile detention facility following her arrest.
Things certainly have changed in the decade since I graduated high school. Back in my day this would be called trying to start a fight. Nowadays is known as conspiracy to commit terrorism. As is common with cases involving children or teenagers the accusations are being vehemently denied by the parents. Ultimately it matters not until the police release their evidence but no matter how you swing it, short of plotting to detonate a bomb in the school, there is no grounds for accusing the girl of terrorism.
Terrorists are the new communists. What I mean by that is we use the label terrorist on anybody who disagrees with us instead of a specific group of people, much like people would accuse somebody they hated of being a communist during the Cold War. The shooters at Columbine would fit the definition of terrorists but a 16 year-old girl trying to get a gang together to beat the snot out of a fellow student is far from being a terrorist.