Nine years ago nineteen evil murders killed three thousand innocent Americans on our home soil. On the anniversary of that event, politicians and talking heads will orate and make “profound” statements. None of them will be relevant. All of us were there. We won’t gain anything from a politician with exceptional hair and a flag backdrop reading a speech off a teleprompter.
And what can I, a doofus with a blog, add to the moment? Not much. All I want to add is a simple ray of hope. America is still here because it is an idea and it is a damned good idea. Sure I worry about my Nation sometimes, but so did citizens in every era of America’s existence. That’s what life is all about. It’s a hard cruel world and yet our Nation is still holding it’s own. We’re not yet a dictatorship. We haven’t fully gone down the rabbit hole of socialism. We aren’t rounding up dissidents in the streets, the people’s guns aren’t being seized, you can go to whatever church you want, and I can type just about anything on this blog. We are still free.
The fact that I, a citizen and not a subject, have all the freedom I need to pursue my life’s path to it’s ultimate conclusion. That, my friends, is a powerful idea. And it’s tough enough to withstand anything mere terrorists can muster. Terrorists, after all, can’t build anything. They can only destroy.
The sclerotic thinking that perpetrated the tragedy of September 11th was hollow. Many groups use America as a crutch but none of them ultimately matter. War, famine, floods, internal strife, incompetence, corruption; these are all blamed directly or indirectly on us but scapegoating is just a way to avoid self-reliance and responsibility. It does nothing but maintain an infantile self and world view in the perpetrator. Americans, in general, don’t do that. Scapegoating may feel good but we know, deep in our hearts, that we rise or fall largely through our own choices and actions. That is why we are free. That is why we are still here. That is why the current crop of vengeful murderers, those that feel a kinship to the September 11th conspirators, will never amount to much. They can do damage but they can never attain anything of value on their own. Eventually, maybe a long time from now or maybe sooner, they will be forgotten. Just like all the other peoples and movements who knew how to do little more than blame someone else for their lives.
I try to live my life as well as I can. Sometimes I fail. When I do, I don’t blame a Pakastani goat herder, or French foreign policy, or oil companies, or God. I simply get up, learn what I can, and move on. When all Americans do the same, we are a juggernaut. And we stay free.
Please note that about every 30 days or so, that many people die in horrifically painful ways in the US. They die on the highway. Somehow, we’ve managed not to spend trillions of dollars attacking Detroit or Japan over this.
The whole gulf war II was bullshit. Started for bullshit reasons, prosecuted for bullshit reasons, and continues for bullshit reasons.
The entire operation was funded by the Saudis. What have we done to them? Nothing. At. All.