Thank you, @zen_.
Ladies and gentlemen, nine years ago today, the whole world watched as a handful of men wrought terror in the skies, on the streets, and in the fields of this great nation. May we never forget.
Let us never forget that what they were attacking was not only our buildings and our people but also our way of life. The attacks were born of ignorance of our freedoms. The freedom of speech we hold so dear appeared to them as a cacaphony of desperation. The freedom to worship as we choose was seen as weakness and distrusted. Our free press was seen as further evidence of disarray instead of the workings of a free society mulling its diversity.
There is no mistake that the symbol of our economic prowess strength was one of the major targets. But in attacking the Twin Towers, they attacked the world. People from all over the world worked in those towers.
There is no mistake that the symbol of our military hegemony might was also a target. But they failed to take into account that we are a nation of rabid proud gun owners.
We do not know where the last plane was bound, but we know that brave American men and women of all races, creeds, and sexual orientation fought to subdue the terrorist hijackers to only lose their lives in a field in Pennsylvania. We owe them so much.
The world watched us on that day and shared our grief. The world continued to watch as we tore into one Middle Eastern country where the terror had found home, and the world sighed as we ripped into another country, marching to jingoistic tunes and blithely lapping up the lies preached to us by our leadership.
We have now spent over $1,000,000,000,000 on those wars, and we have devastated countless lives here and abroad by wrecking our economy and running up seemingly insurmountable deficits in our budgets.
We have become enamored with fiery talk from zealots on our airwaves. We are enchanted by theories of control. We have lost ourselves to the people who would tell us “No, you can’t do that.”
We are a strong nation. A strong people. We were sorely injured. We allowed ourselves to be sorely abused in the aftermath by those we trusted to tell us the truth. We must never forget.
Cherish your freedoms. Exercise your civil liberties. Question authority. Never forget.
