Consider and discuss, for example, the tropes of "terrorist"∞ and "terrorism' and "war on terror."

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How have different audiences and composers defined terrorism? Can a war be waged on "terror"? Note that the Education Secretary's response in the first link that he was "clearly joking" doesn't really help him: should one joke about terrorist organizations? Can any such joke be "clear", since jokes always depend upon shared and often unspoken contexts? These are the sorts of complexities introduced when we turn tropes toward our intentions, yet this is precisely what we do with tropes all the time.


Now look at Venezula's Vice President's response to Pat Robertson's trope, "take him out.":


"The United States might not permit its citizens to use its territory and airwaves to incite terrorists abroad and the murder of a democratically elected president," Alvarez said. "Venezuela demands that the U.S. abide by international and domestic law and respect its country and our president."

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