With violence erupting anew and the controversy over bans on Muslim immigrants and terrorism, I feel it’s important to comment on the state of things and a fundamental misunderstanding of terrorism on the part of our elected officials. To whit:

Terrorism isn’t a person. It isn’t even a people. It’s an ideal.

This is where things get sticky. Our government officials have stated that we will “defeat terrorism” and that we’re already doing a pretty decent job of it. But what’s the measure being used? How can you tell how many people – ordinary, disenchanted, naturalized citizens of the country – are being influenced by this ideal and how they’re responding to our attacks on a vague notion of the “perversion of the religion of Islam?” The answer is, you cannot. To prove that, look at the recent attack in Orlando where, at what seemed to be the last minute in a seemingly uninformed statement by the killer, a natural-born United States citizen pledged allegiance to ISIS and murdered 49 people. He’s not alone.