Closer to Terror: The Tea Party vs. Occupy

No issue is more divisive on a basic level in the American conscience than the role the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement play in domestic terrorism.  Oft left under or even un-stated, both organizations have claims to history making political disobedience, and both can and have been classified, according to respected sources, by the U.S. government as 'Domestic Terrorist' organizations.  The extent to which this unrecognized and unofficial indictment of ill intent reflects the actual modus operandi of either loosely nit organization remains to be seen, however - there are many social, cultural, as well as esoteric dimensions to consider when broaching the subject not only of an organization with which one is not affiliated nor sympathetic, as is the case of the global Jihad movement, but of an organization which one identifies with or has actually stood beside in civil activism.  These dimensions can only optimistically be rationalized away, but can only very pessimistically be described as defining our great nation's character of the time.  Nevertheless, it has become the test of the self-described moderate to distance violent ideologies from practical necessity and the world in which one participates in society through vocation.  It doesn't seem worth mentioning, however it demands that I do so, that very often the classico or neo-activist's devotional instinct to a cause is in fact the main subject of their energies - which is to say, more often than not, activists are the non-job seeking unemployed.  This to me seems to be the difference between participation and identification.  One who is currently under the employ of a business will lack the true participation in the most vile and criminal (not to mention treasonous) aspects of a protest movement, while the unemployed should find themselves ripe for participation but characteristically lacking in identification.  Case in point, the Tea Party 20 something Libertarian would seem to be more than adequately bestowed the capacity for participation in Tea Party activism, but more often than not lacks the authentic identity of the archetypal Conservative protester.  Conversely, the identification of the Occupy platform squarely falls on the disenfranchised working man of the left, who clings to whatever conscious remnants of the 'social justice' ideology that has been bestowed upon their demographic - yet often is quite far removed from the rag tag Occupiers in any given city.  The responsibility of the citizen of the U.S. who finds their morality squarely in line with a group that has been documented as committing acts of terrorism is not an imperative of disassociation with some un-explicated fringe group, for if that were the case anyone who has ever held an opinion that could be considered unorthodox would have to spend the majority of their life proving microscopic ethical differentiations.  The real responsibility we as citizens of America have to civilized discourse is to make impassioned stands on what constitutes the 'law' as such.  Is the sovereign law, as Jesus taught, not of man but of god?  On the anti-religious opposite end, is god's law irrational and man's ability to create the real source of moral autonomy?  These are all posed speculatively as exaggerations of what, in many respects, is the racy caricature  of modern civic unrest and it's expression through the organization of like-minded patriots.  That really does seem to be the 'rub' of it - both sides, Tea Party and Occupy, generally consider what they are doing in the public domain to be patriotic.  But as Robert Solomon, the professor of philosophy at the University of Austin who lectured at great length on the concept of 'Responsibility', once entombed about emotions (however I think it applies to Morality in much the same way) - One can either be warranted or un-warranted in one's judgements.  One can be either 'on the mark' or 'off the mark' with one's decisions, actions, and philosophical/ideological positioning.  The mark of an honorable form of protest is the degree to which it proceeds from first premise or basic ethical judgement to an engagement reflecting the fundamental aspects of said premise or morality.  So, as is often decried as disreputable on the right, perhaps putting a Hitler mustache on a photo of the current president reflects not the basic distinctions of an ethico-moral stance - but in fact a blind groping towards the, interestingly enough, much touted evil of 'fascism'.  Further, what could possibly be more genuinely patriotic than a respected and vetted individual being elected to office on their party platform and traveling to and fro from their hometown to Washington D.C. and back again with the goal of promoting, in some broad way, the values which are central to said individual's worldview and that of their constituency?  I would suppose in some sense it would be bound to cut the other way, but it's hardly worth the expenditure of thought to come to the simple realization that both existent forms of patriotism have a well worn place within a free society.  Is there a place for intensely emotional love of god and country for the moderate?  What about a recognition of the conditions of empathy, sympathy, and all those other antiquities of the intellectual leaders of the 18th century in the value judgements of any given 'extremist', if one would be so bold as to describe those with controversial gradients of opinion and ethics within their party of choice in such language?  What about my own personal opinion that while whining and singing in the public square may not be the high point of Democracy, that all of the above represent a verifiable mechanism of historical give and take between the systems of society and those who reap what their given time sows?  Well, to put it briefly, all of these are considerable concerns - however, one stands above them all, and that is the overwhelmingly objective truth that Freedom derives not from man's systems of power, punishment, and progress - but simply from somewhere else, somewhere the great theoreticians of Democracy knew was a universal place within Man's 'heart'.  Thank you for reading - below is a list of the recent terrorist activity perpetrated by the Occupy movement so far in May 2012. 1. Location - Seattle and San Francisco: the 'Black Bloc' smashed and paint bombed the windows of police stations and other establishments. 2. Location - NYC: Occupiers seized journalists' camera's, sent threatening letters and white powder to Wells Fargo.  3. Location - Ohio: Occupy Cleveland protesters planned to blow up a bridge to Cuyahoga Valley National Park with C-4, claiming the blow would be struck for the '99 percent'.