That Day

Another anniversary. The further along we get the easier it is to identify what changed that day.

After that day we could no longer claim to be the Home of the Brave as we let irrational fear feed hatred of the Other. As we lashed out blindly at innocents because they looked like our attackers or worshiped the same god they did (the same god many of us claim to follow, as well, just with a different name). It is fear that caused some of us to prevent American Muslims from building mosques from California to Tennessee to New York, fear that caused some of us to attack Sikhs because they wear turbans, fear that allowed cynical politicians to manipulate us into an unnecessary war. We were told to go shopping, there was no need to be participating citizens, the experts would protect us. So we bought magnetic ribbons and crying eagle T-shirts and continued to drive as if the gasoline we used had nothing to do with the situation we were in.

Neither could we claim, after that day, to be the Land of the Free as we allowed those same politicians to cow us into accepting what have become permanent restraints on our constitutional liberties in return for an illusory safety. We now submit to scans, x-rays, body searches, various levels of disrobing and yet despite many reports and warnings in advance, the original attacks were not prevented. Despite the continuing security theater, subsequent attacks, starting on that very day, have been foiled not by the authorities but by us, ourselves, the civilians on the scene. And we did not object and believed the ridiculous claim that our risk could be brought down to zero.

Are we safer? After 9/11, the terrorists were never going to use airplanes as flying bombs again. That stunt only works once before the passengers realize the rules have changed, you no longer cooperate with the hijackers in return for a quick stopover in exotic, tropical Havana. Faced with certain death anyway, you fight back, hard. And we did. And will again. Despite our leaders' lack of faith in us.

Mark Twain supposedly once said, "To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Well, we own the biggest hammer in the world and we haven't been shy about using it these past eleven years. Did invading Iraq help? Does stripping grandma and feeling up little kids at the airport help? Does collecting every conversation in the world help? Hint: NSA had received a warning about the underwear bomber but couldn't pull it out of the haystack until after the attempt was made and the perp arrested.

We lost our minds on that day and we haven't been quite right in the head since. 

The one thing we haven't lost, will never lose, is our innocence but that's just because, when it comes to politics, we never learn from experience.