Ten years ago, September Eleventh was a weekday work day for my wife and I. Her mother was visiting, getting ready to go back to work driving truck cross country. She was waiting on a call from her dispatcher telling her they had a load for her. Her dispatcher called and told her to turn on the television. In an event that Americans haven't seen the like of, probably since Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the whole of the nations attention was glued to their televisions. After picking our jaws up off the floor, and not fully understanding the depth of what was taking place, my wife and I went to work.
As word of what all was happening spread and updates came in, I got to experience the American people at something less than their finest. From the moment that it was first reported that Muslim extremists were responsible for the attacks the racist bullshit comments started. But that wasn't what most horrified me on that day. It was listening to people make disparaging comments about the people who had been on the planes, or in the towers and died. The most heart breaking and gut wrenching was hearing our co-worker who prior to that day we would both have characterized as a "sweet old lady" carry on about how all those people died because "They weren't right with God." Then there was the inevitable talk about how this was the first sign of "The End Times". And this was spoken in a tone that can only be called celebratory.
If all this had only been confined to that day I suppose it would eventually fade in my memory.
But in many ways things have only gotten worse. In the decade since The Date we have seen this country quickstep towards becoming a fascist police state in the name of keeping us "safe" from terrorism. The problem being that Terrorism by its very nature is not something you can defend against. Not really. No matter what security measures you have in place there are always going to be loopholes that aren't obvious until they are exploited.
While certainly reasonable measures should be taken, the idea that we should be able to tap the phones or emails of anyone who we think "might" be somehow distantly involved with terrorists, without there being any kind of due process, the idea that we should detain people indefinitely without them having any recourse, or even being told what they are being charged with, the notion that we should ever execute an American Citizen because of their actions, with no trial, with no safeguards to ensure that they are guilty of what they've been accused of is frankly horrifying.
Meanwhile politicians on both the Left and the Right wrap themselves up in the flag and proclaim their love for this country and its people when it suits them. But as we've seen in the last year that love doesn't extend to giving the people who were on the scene at the World Trade Center trying to save what lives they could, the medical care they deserve. It doesn't extend to making certain that all people are treated equally under the law regardless of skin color, or religion.
The official title for the day to memorialize the events of The Date is Patriot Day. But it's a very narrow minded and shallow kind of Patriotism that is being celebrated. It is the kind of Patriotism that sees the war monger as a Patriot and the war protester as a Traitor. It is the kind of Patriotism that declares that it is not enough to secure our country from invasion, we must in the name of our safety go forth and invade any country that might possibly represent a threat to us, either now or in the future.
If the terrorists attacked us on The Date, because they "Envy our freedom", well we should be safe from ever being attacked for that reason again, because since then we've got a lot less freedom to be envied for.
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!
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