The New Definition of Extremist

Extremist (n.) - ex / tree / mist - 1. synonym for terrorist; 2. an evangelical who actually takes the Bible literally; 3. a single-issue voter (especially if it is the issue of life in the womb); 4. someone who believes that each article in the Bill of Rights is coherent with the document as a whole--i.e. the first and tenth amendments; 5. an owner of firearms; 6. anyone who has ever been right about anything in history and acted on it.

Notice that the new definition of an extremist pretty much eliminates history. I don't mean the study of history, but history itself. Each major player and revolutionary idea was, by definition, in the overwhelming minority. Each thought and said and did what they did in the face of the coventional wisdom and often the armed resolve of the masses that surrounded them.

Moreover, the biggest extremist of all is God. God's thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. So far above our thoughts and ways are his, that no generation will ever form a consensus that welcomes his thoughts and ways.

Actually this definition is not new. What is new (at least in the last generation) is the equation of such thought crimes to the "enemy of the state" level. That ought to alarm us. Of course, since it only alarms the overwhelming minority, I suppose that bringing it up is just another extreme position. Even this is not unheard of in American history. The first Adams' administration (1797-1801) had passed the Alien and Sedition Acts presumably to quell the internal rabble-rousing of French revolutionary sympathizers, yet historians note that its real motive was to smear Thomas Jefferson and his aspirations for the next election. Jefferson countered with the language of the Kentucky and Virgina Resolutions of 1798. Their expressed purpose was to dust of the Tenth Amendment after only a decade of neglect.

That motion is being reconsidered by a new generation of extremists. We shall see. Tea Party's are not new either. My suspicion is that half of their antendees were just playing hooky from school. Extremists.