Maybe you thought Republicans were �strong on defense.� Perhaps you had the impression that Dick Cheney-admirers consider terrorists to be unmitigated, unredeemable, unappeasable evil in the flesh.

Then came Joe Stack - the anti-tax, anti-government software engineer who plane-bombed an IRS building in Texas last week killing two workers. The kind of guy Republican Congressman Steve King told a Conservative Political Action Conference audience he could �empathize� with. The man who many conservatives are lauding as a �hero.�

If you didn�t want to believe it before, believe it now. When conservatives talk about �terrorists� what they really mean are Arabs, Muslims or any other brown or dark-skinned person who, like Joe, thinks that �violence is the only way.� In fact, when Afghanis and Iraqis take up arms to fight a military invasion, we call them �terrorists� even when �they� attack military targets!

To be fair, it�s not easy asking ridiculous questions like: why do they hate us? when �they� are us. Or, more specifically, a white American with no obvious ties to �Islamo-fascism� a la John Walker Lindh.

But frankly, we all knew that. At least since W �misspoke� and referred to the so-called Global War on Terror as a �crusade.�

While it may not be too surprising that there�s a �debate� in the media over whether Joe the Engineer is a terrorist or not, it�s still an Orwellian wonder to behold.

It�s interesting to note that while the kamikaze mission in Texas was the top news story the day it happened, and the next day - according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), publishers of a weekly breakdown of national news coverage - it was only the fifth-biggest story of the week; behind the economy, the Winter Olympics, Afghanistan and the 2010 elections, which are still almost a year away.

Remember the near-miss Northwest Airlines terror plot foiled just before Christmas? No one was debating whether to call it terrorism and it was the top story for the entire week, getting almost 20 percent more news hole than Joe-sama bin Stack, even though Joe has far more sympathizers in the U.S. than al Qaeda could ever hope to have. Hmmmm.

Near-miss terrorism had the President giving addresses, calling for national security reviews, reportedly losing his famous cool with cabinet members, ordering tighter airport security measures, full body scanners, the whole shebang. The right frothed about Mirandizing terrorists because...well, ya know, the whole �strong on defense� bit.

Then Joe flies onto the radar screen and gives us a textbook case of terrorism - killing civilians to advance a political point - and folks are doing mental gymnastics over whether or not Joe should be called a terrorist.

I�ll give Tea Party supporter and editor of The Humble Libertarian magazine, Wesley Messamore, credit though. Messamore at least has the honesty to call Joe by his name:

�Joe Stack was a terrorist. Period...it�s hard for me not to feel like the only fervent antitax activist out there who is unequivocally opposed to Stack�s domestic terrorism,� he wrote this week in the Christian Science Monitor. 

�In 2010, a terrorist is not someone who targets civilians to accomplish political goals; a terrorist is a Muslim who targets civilians to accomplish political goals. This is an intrinsically myopic view of the world. Muslims are not the only terrorists. When my father was my age, the word �terrorist� was associated with Irish Christians. When my great-grandfather was my age, it was associated with Jewish anarchists. Only today is terror primarily associated with Islam. At a time like this, if every disgruntled American did what Stack did, our great country would be reduced to ashes.�

Well, yeah, Wes. That�s what the �moonbats� on the left have been saying for years. And yet the warm-and-fuzzy peaceniks are na�ve?! Welcome to the real party.

I�m not gonna lie and I wasn�t alone. My initial reaction to the news was: yet another typical right wing extremist snapped.

But if you read the rant he left behind, you�ll find a riff on capitalism in there: �The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.�

Pretty witty. Someone on the left should have thought of that first. And when have you ever heard anyone on the right say anything bad about capitalism, even if it�s an obvious truism? I�m not saying Stack is the new Che Guevera, I�m just sayin�.

The biggest irony, of course, has been left/right out of the discussion; namely that Joe Stack was a software engineer! For a computer guy to be that pissed at the IRS highlights a fundamental blind spot in popular anti-government politics, especially the kind Reaganites like to dabble in.

I hate to rain on a good Tea Party but it was Big Government that created the internet. And no, I�m not talking about Al Gore.

What was sold to the public as the �information superhighway� began as way for Defense Department scientists to better communicate with one another. The internet has its technological roots in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) which funded all the initial R & D. And just like many other taxpayer-funded R & D projects, when Big Bad Government technology is �ready for market,� it gets handed over to private industry so they can profit from it. Public subsidy. Private profit. That�s the system we have. Ever heard of the Energy Department or the National Institute of Health�s offices of �technology transfers?�

The DOE boasts: �Estimates are that fully half the growth in the American economy in the last 50 years was due to (tax-payer) funding of scientific and technological innovation. Research investments by the Department of Energy have yielded a wealth of dividends, including new intellectual capital, significant technological innovations, medical and health advances, enhanced economic competitiveness, and improved quality of life for the American people.�

If Rep. King can empathize with Joe Stack, it shouldn�t be hard for him to empathize with the �terrorism� of foreign fighters mad as hell with U.S. foreign policy and its military application, which, needless to say, is much more severe than tax liens and cannot be fixed by voting out U.S. policy-makers. 

And if you can�t appreciate the irony of a computer guy biting the hand that Fed his profession, well, then you�re probably a closet tea bagger oblivious to the long history of Uncle Sam transferring tax-payer dollars into the hands of private industry.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Nathaniel Turner is a pseudonym for a Gen X writer, newspaper editor and activist. He is a news analyst who offers commentaries on contemporary issues facing the progressive movements in the USA Click here to contact brother Turner.