Yep; Black Crowes' tunes can & will be used as post titles. I was toying with calling it "Surrounded" or "Another Day" after two songs by Dream Theater, but figured they were too obscure a reference for most folks to catch (& a damn shame as they're both really nice songs). Just pray I don't get into a Coolio mood. :)
A lot of bloggers posted memorials yesterday. From what I understand they (the memorials) were all over the news & radio. But let's talk about what happened (or what should have happened) on September the 12th of 2001.
The day before we were hit pretty hard. We all know the details now but back then it took a little while to get an idea of what was going on. Some of us were still in shock over what happened. Hell, some of us still are. But some of us woke up a little bit the next day.
A perfect world wasn't in anyone's mind but it seemed relatively safe. On September the 12th of 2001 it didn't look nearly as hospitable or as cozy. There were people halfway around the world that were willing to travel the distance & kill themselves just to kill us. The government couldn't stop them. In fact the government set up conditions which made their attack go a little easier for them (mainly by making sure the passengers were disarmed & incapable of mounting a decent defense against their attack).
So a few folks looked at the events of the day before & realized that self reliance wasn't just something for the primitives in third world countries.
Of course it wasn't a mass conversion & some of the folks who saw what was going on still arrived at the wrong conclusion (i.e. we need more government to protect us) but a little awareness is better than none.
Since then we've been paying a little more attention to our own security. Not a lot more but a little more. Collectively we still miss the boat concerning a few things. For instance our southern border is so porous that we don't have to worry too much about trying to protect our northern border. But then again a lot of folks have realized that having a firearm & the training to go along with it is a useful skill, not just the favorite pastime of us ignorant hicks from the hills.
We are by no means out of the woods. Not only are the threats we face just as real as they were on September the 10th of 2001 but we're still not as prepared to face them as we could be.
Take flying for instance. we all admire & respect the sacrifice made by the folks of United Flight 93. They charged armed hijackers with what meager implements they could & forced a crash into a field instead of a populated area. Yet what do we surrender when we fly? Anything that the TSA deems could be used as a weapon.
Despite the lesson I think is clear to most of the folks who read this post the rest of the people are either clueless or just apathetic. & the government started this whole business in the first place about disarming the people (despite a constitutional provision to the contrary) so it's no wonder they cringed at the idea of at least arming the pilots.
& ya know that still ticks me off. I've driven from Colorado to North Carolina 3 times in the last year or so because it's the only way I can be sure of not having my favorite hogleg & pocket knife stolen by government directed thugs. It'd have been quicker, easier & cheaper to fly & I would have if I could have some guarantee that my right to property & arms (not to mention privacy) would be honored. Instead of seeing how disarmed folks were no match for determined terrorists with knives & rescinding the unconstitutional rule prohibiting passengers from carrying arms what'd the government do? They started taking away our nail clippers!
So there's room for improvement in a lot of areas. Some (by no means all) of that improvement is more possible because of the folks who looked around at the world on September the 12th of 2001 & realized it wasn't as safe as they thought two days before. that doesn't guarantee that any such improvements will be made, but I think they'll be a little easier to make because of that shift in attitude.
The question is will we make the necessary changes? Will we realize that our collective security is enhanced by bolstering our individual security? Will we vote with that in mind? Or will we settle for the lesser of two evils as we always have in this country?
The answers are still uncertain, but there's a little more hope because of the folks who altered their perspective on September the 12th of 2001. The attacks of the 11th were horrific & should be seared into our minds, but so should the feeling we had the next day - not of mourning for those lost or anger at those who committed such acts, but that we were ultimately responsible for our own safety. No politician can deliver on any promise to the contrary & for a brief time some of us realized that.
Posted by Publicola at September 12, 2006 03:50 AM | TrackBack