It is certainly campaign season, and that means incendiary rhetoric about a myriad of issues that concern you. All issues that are up for discussion among presidential hopefuls concern your rights, liberties, and well-being, but there is one issue among the rest that I would like to highlight which is muddled in ambiguity: national security.

National security is at once an extremely broad issue, with many tentacles in all realms of American life be it the economy, civil liberties, education, airport safety, etc.

In that regard, it is extremely hard to pin down what national security really is or what the implications of national security polices are.

When candidates debate the state of national security and what their ideas and policies would be, they do little to clarify exactly what they mean by, well, anything.

Of course, this is a political technique ­— don’t say what you mean, actually, don’t say much of anything at all. As a voter, however, it is your task to decide what you think about these issues, interpret the debates, and make an informed and reasoned decision about the varying opinions.

The very basis of the reasoning process is in defining the terms of discussion. In national security, this is exceedingly important.

What do we mean by “terrorist” or “War on Terror,” for example? Likewise, what liberties do you hold so dear that you would never give up to national security policies?

The implications of what we mean by certain words are extremely far-reaching. How we define a war impacts how we fight that war and how we treat enemy combatants.

As the U.S. is in the “War on Terror,” what specifically do we mean by that? On one level, the war is ideological; that we oppose, on a theoretical level, the use of violence against innocents or symbolic targets for the sake of a political agenda.

But if the war is ideological, then is it passive or active? If the U.S. were passive towards terror, but ideologically opposed, we might make statements denouncing terror, but not actually hunt down terrorists. In that the “War on Terror” may be ideological, but it is also active. The U.S. is ideologically opposed to terror, but also physically interested in stopping it.

Because terror is a tool that anyone, really, anyone with enough willpower, can take up against a nation, the object of the “War on Terror” is hardly defined.

We are fighting against an idea and a strategy, not a particular group.We have numerous terrorist groups in the United States ranging from ecological terrorists to militia groups to hate groups, but we do not label them enemy combatants in this “War on Terror.” They are viewed, often, as criminals.

Their use of terror, however, is the same as Islamic extremists which are the real target of the war. But I will leave the inconsistencies of these definitions for you to discern on your own. I merely wanted to use the “War of Terror” as a sample of just one topic that needs serious consideration in the coming election.

Do candidates really know the implications of their policy? Do we, listening to these candidates, even know what the candidates mean when they use certain words?

I encourage you to consult with your professors and peers about what candidates mean by what they say. For all the rhetorical flourishes, candidates may not be saying anything at all.

Michael is a sophomore majoring in English and philosophy