The Evil Eyebrow

9-11 and Why We Should Move On

Written by

Bill Ruhsam

in

The various September 11th things that I hear on the radio or see on the TV bug me. Not because I think it’s wrong to remember the dead; I don’t have a problem with the Oklahoma City bombing memorials. No, it’s because the government and the news media have managed, in seven short years, to assign a connotation to the event that does not represent the best values of this nation. We have become accustomed to a persistent reminder that “WE WERE ATTACKED!” rather than “We Mourn the Loss of our Fellow Citizens”.

This bugs me, as I mentioned. For one thing, I don’t think that America is about revenge or retribution. For another, what happens when we’ve “won” the war on terror?1 What happens to our 9-11 remembrances than? Will they fizzle out with a whimper because their raison d’etre has been eliminated?

Almost 3,000 people died and that is horrible. What would be more horrible is if we continue to use their deaths as a springboard to throw our freedoms and liberties out the door. Let’s take back the 9-11 from the fear mongers and opportunists. Let’s remember our fellow citizens as people who died for their country. As the bumper sticker says, “If you like your freedom, thank a Vet.” Let’s not change it to, “If support government control, thank 9-11.”

1Not that it’s possible to win the war on terror

Comments

One response to “9-11 and Why We Should Move On”

  1. James Cronen Avatar
    James Cronen

    Completely agreed.

    Certainly, 9/11 was a tragedy. A great wrong was perpetrated on this nation, and it was terrible. But there was really not much we could do about it. While I’d love to blame Bush, I don’t think he could have done much to outright prevent the attack.

    I would love to see the continued false patriotism and fashionable mourning of a horrible event replaced by outrage for our national predicament and a commitment to improving the lives of citizens. We need to stop fetishizing deaths that happened seven years ago and take constructive action to do those things in the Preamble to the Constitution: establishing justice, rather than holding suspected terrorists without charge for an indefinite amount of time; insure domestic tranquility, which I interpret to mean that the government actually listens to its citizens; provide for the common defense, which means don’t start proactively attacking nations whose policies we don’t agree with. And don’t even get me started on ‘securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity’ — it’s clear that for the first time in our nation’s history, our rights are eroding rather than flourishing.

    The real irony here is that bin Laden wanted to perpetrate the downfall of America. Our citizens are doing a damn fine job of doing that themselves through the encouragement of heavy-handed politics and the propagation of needless fear.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts