The Absurd Report

Domestic Terrorism: A group burns some new homes it thinks are an affront to nature. A nut riding a bicycle explodes a small bomb at a military recruiting center on Times Square. Any connection? We think so.

As for Thursday morning’s bomb, there’s a lot of speculation about who set it off. Islamic extremists? Groups affiliated with Code Pink, Ruckus, Recreate ‘68 and other extreme left-wing groups? All possible, but none proven — yet.

That said, the apocalyptic rhetoric and verbal violence of the far left is starting to be translated into acts of terrorism. Soon, someone’s going to get hurt badly or even killed if we don’t stop it now.

We’ve been here before. The extreme-left anarchists of the late 19th century even had a phrase for it: “The propaganda of the deed.” In modern terms, it means talk is cheap but violence is real.

That seems to be the guiding principle for some of these groups. Yes, the explosion at Times Square killed no one. But maybe the next one will.

Ditto Monday’s home burnings by eco-terrorists in Washington state. Just homes destroyed, no lives. But what next?

Emboldened by their own over-the-top rhetoric and by getting away with their crimes so far, whoever is doing these things will ratchet up the violence. They crave the attention. That’s why they chose the Army recruitment center in Times Square as a target. It’s glitzy, and they knew it would get lots of media.

This is not just any recruitment center. According to the Associated Press, it has been the busiest recruitment center in the U.S. for more than half a century, averaging about 10,000 volunteers a year.

We wish this were an isolated incident, but it isn’t.