I was all nine-elevened out even before the day began. On Tuesday night, the 10th, my wife gave me the TV guide with Post-It notes and hi-lighter drawing my attention to all the programs she wanted recorded on this, the first anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.
Unfortunately, we have several VCRs and a TiVo so it was actually possible to record each and every 9-11 marathon, each remembrance and memorial, the wall-to-wall retrospectives — each item she had marked in the TV Guide. It took a bit of head scratching to get it all mapped out, then about 30 minutes of labeling tapes and programming devices. I told my Mac to present several reminders to change tapes at appropriate times and then I was prepared.
But I’d already had enough of 9-11. It’s depressing. It’s sickening, really. The unnecessary loss of life was bad enough; the reaction to it, still on-going, was far worse. As I predicted within days of the attack, we have indeed passed a boatload of legislation that will only make things worse. I’d stated that we would learn all the wrong “lessons” from 9-11 and we did. We now have a new cabinet-level department charged with protecting us — by infringing our rights even further.
I avoided turning on the TV all day today. I wanted no part of all the maudlin hand-wringing, the orgy of tear-jerking stories revisited. It was bad enough the first time around. I don’t endure such things well. I always end up an emotional wreck, filled with a great sadness and an even greater anger. The hypocrisy and lies are too much for me.
When my wife arrived home and turned on the TV, there was exactly what I couldn’t stomach —Dan Rather going on about how we are a nation that won’t give in to fear. Excuse me?!? Then why are we afraid of nail clippers? If we weren’t shaking in our collective boots, would we be in a froth about those plastic knives that break when you try to spread a pat of butter on an airline dinner roll? What, if not fear, motivates us to require that airline passengers pass through metal detectors and show ID to prove who they are before we let them on a commercial aircraft? We haven’t given in to fear?!?
We’re a big bunch of scare-dee-cats. Chickens. We’re a nation of yellowbelly cowards, and we’re afraid even to admit it. We’re afraid of nail clippers and pointy objects, we’re really afraid of box cutters and we’re really, really afraid of guns. We’re so afraid of guns that when a kid takes the itty-bitty, plastic pistol (about one inch end-to-end) that came with his GI Joe to school, we suspend him. THATS how afraid we are of “guns”, even guns that no one in their right mind would take to be a threat. We’re so afraid of guns that we don’t even want our kids to *know* about guns — that’s how afraid we are. Kids have been kicked out of school for drawing a picture of a gun.
Tell me we haven’t given in to fear.
9-11-2001 did not have to happen. But it did happen because we’re afraid. We’re afraid even to defend ourselves when attacked. We’re taught not to resist an attacker — that’ll only make him angrier. And we could get hurt. Wouldn’t want to risk THAT, would we. So the milquetoast, pantywaist, lily-livered, most frightened amongst us see to it that no one is permitted to defend themselves. The tools of self-defense (so very lacking on 9-11) are forbidden, lest someone turn them to aggressive ends.
So atrocities like 9-11 become possible. There is no one equipped to resist, much less prepared mentally. We are disarmed and meek, having been conditioned to quietly accept our fates. Protecting people, we are told, is best left to professionals. As we empty our pockets of change and other metal objects to be herded through the security checkpoint, we think, falsely, that we are protected.
But we know that we are brave because the talking heads tell us so. We are strong because we have red, white, and blue ribbons on our chests, protecting us. We are fearless, and to prove it, we fly American flags. That’ll show ’em what we’re made of.
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“You cannot be defenseless against evil. To discard the means for people to defend themselves leads to the kind of holocaust we have seen over and over again.” — Alan Keyes