Where Is The Smoke: The #Rhetoric Of A Riot

R3 Contributor

Under federal law, a riot is a public disturbance involving an act of violence by one or more persons assembled in a group of at least three people. Inciting a riot applies to a person who organizes, encourages, or participates in a riot. It can apply to one who urges or instigates others to riot. According to 18 USCS § 2102 “to incite a riot”, or “to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot”, includes, but is not limited to, urging or instigating other persons to riot, but shall not be deemed to mean the mere oral or written (1) advocacy of ideas or (2) expression of belief, not involving advocacy of any act or acts of violence or assertion of the rightness of, or the right to commit, any such act or acts.”

Many of us live and die by social media. Unfortunately Facebook and Twitter, for so many, have become the most credible sources of the latest relevant news. So, it comes as no surprise to me that a post by one Mary Burrell is being taken as credible news in light of the recent rhetoric surrounding the Affordable Health Care Act. According to Ms. Burrell, whose Facebook profile identifies her political views as “Sarah Palin,” the language of the Affordable Health Care Act, also unfortunately labeled as “Obamacare,” contains this curious word, “Dhimmitude.” Dhimmitude, according to Ms. Burrell’s post, is defined as “the Muslim system of controlling non-Muslim populations conquered through jihad (Holy War). Specifically, it is the TAXING of non-Muslims in exchange for tolerating their presence AND as a coercive means of converting conquered remnants to Islam!” Additionally, Burrell states that Muslims are exempted from the government mandate to purchase insurance because Muslims consider insurance to be “gambling, risk-taking, and usury” which are all banned by Islam.

In essence, Burrell is accusing the President of Islamic evangelism and providing governmental perks to those of the Islamic faith. And we, as a Christian nation, should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing such proselytizing and favoritism to not only be running amuck, but to be endorsed from the nation’s highest office. Well, the origin of thought behind this rhetoric is no secret. We are still stuck on, “His name is Barack Hussein Obama, II, so he must be a Muslim.” We have yet to get beyond, “His pastor was Jeremiah Wright, who damned America, and he listened to all those sermons for all those years.” We cannot get beyond, “He can’t be an American citizen, because I still ain’t seen his real birth certificate, yet.” And now, according to Burrell, the latest strike against the President is, “He’s giving folk like him the hook-up!” It is tearing at the fabric of the American tapestry.

Interesting thing, though. While I have not read the Affordable Health Care Act in its entirety, I have done a little “technology-aided, research-based fact checking.” That’s right. I “Googled” the Affordable Health Care Act. Several times. And I downloaded actual copies of the act in a pdf format. There is a little function in pdf files called, “Find,” which gives you the ability to search the entire document for certain words or phrases. So, I typed in the word, “Dhimmitude,” and set the Adobe program off on its digital fox hunt. You will never guess what message came back every time I conducted a search. “Reader has finished searching the document. NO MATCHES WERE FOUND” (emphasis mine). Not only is Dhimmitude not found on page 107 of the document as indicated by Burrell. It is not found ANYWHERE IN THE ENTIRE DOCUMENT! My fox hunt had turned out to be a wild goose chase. On top of that, “dhimmitude” is not even a real word according to The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. “Dhimmi” is found in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. But it is described as a “non-Muslim under protection of Muslim law,” which could include anyone of any religious faith or those who do not practice any religious faith in particular.

So, if “Dhimmitude” is not to be found in the Affordable Health Care Act, nor is it to be found in Muslim or Islamic usage, what could be the point of promoting such deceitful propaganda? I think it falls under the category of inciting a riot. Not within the scope of shouting “fire” in a crowded movie theater. But this type of language does cause a public disturbance which involves violence and discord of a linguistic nature. This violence is aimed, as so many times before, at the character and persona of our nation’s leader. The intent is to frighten the masses into a frenzy founded on an implied attack on Christian values and the American Way. In the case of shouting “fire” in a crowded public space, the thought behind the strategy is often to get the masses running and looking in one direction while something else is afoot in the other direction. In line with this strategy, shouting “Dhimmitude” in this public space seems to be geared toward getting the masses to run and look in the direction of Obamacare, which is now being suddenly painted as pro-Islamic and pro-Muslim, while something else is afoot in the other direction – a dismantling of what the President stands for and has tried to accomplish, on the whole.

With social media platforms like Facebook available to the masses, it is becoming easier and easier to shout “fire” in this very public manner. The unfortunate truth is that once “fire” is first shouted, most of the time we do not check the validity of the shout. One person shouts, others start shouting. One person runs, others start running. One person posts bogus status updates, others start sharing those bogus status updates. All of this would be quite easy to fix if, every once in a while, someone stopped to take notice of whether or not anyone actually saw any smoke.

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Where is the Smoke: The #Rhetoric of a Riot