According to a recent Rasmussen poll, almost as many Obama supporters view the Tea Party as the biggest terrorist threat to America as think it is radical Islam. (29% radical Islam, 26% the Tea Party, vs 51% Radical Islam & 26% the Tea Party in the overall survey)

In fairness, 2% thought the Occupy movement was the biggest terrorist threat, which is just as stupid. Maybe the smell of an Occupy camp is a threat, and there have been quite a number of reports of property damage, but these aren’t terrorism.

Show me the Tea Party (or Occupy) members who bombed a major sporting event, flew planes into sky scrapers, or are stuffing their underwear with explosives. It just isn’t happening.

Maybe you could say that the ideology of either of these groups is a bigger threat than Islamic terrorists. It may well be, but to say that either is a bigger terrorist threat is nonsensical, and ignores the actual evidence. I could argue the the freebie culture fueling most of the Occupy movement is a threat to our way of life, and I can see where Democrats might feel the same way about Tea Party groups, but we just don’t have the evidence, especially with Tea Party groups, that they are a terrorist threat.

Maybe it isn’t a matter of simply ignoring the evidence. Maybe people no longer care if something is defined. If something is a threat, it must be terrorism. Or “terrorist” is just being used as a superlative, like saying it’s the biggest threat. The problem is, words mean things, and it is important that they retain those meanings. Once words are redefined, the words lose all their meaning. If terrorist becomes “someone we disagree with,” terrorist no longer means ANYTHING. If that happens, then everyone is a terrorist, because we all disagree with someone.

Saying the Tea Party is the biggest terrorist threat to America is a knee-jerk reaction more filled with emotion than thought.