I’d like to say something profound about 9/11, but find I have nothing profound to say. Instead, I carry around a mental patchwork of images from that day, along with a lot of strong feelings that I voice regularly in this blog. I’m incapable of weaving any of these threads into something coherent enough or meaningful enough to pay homage to the people who died that die. Certainly I know the changes it wrought in my own life. Before 9/11, I was a suburban homemaker, mildly distressed about George Bush’s “unfair” victory in Florida, but mostly concerned with the minutiae of my life. My older child was only four, my younger just a toddler. Every day was focused on childcare, housework and legal projects.
Then, a little before 7:00 P.S.T. in the morning on 9/11, a neighbor called: “Are you sending your kids to preschool today?” “Why?” “Turn on the TV.” I turned on the TV just in time to see the the first tower collapse. My husband and I sat there stunned. All we could say, over and over, was “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” We simply could not absorb the magnitude of the attacks and the scope of the human destruction. We knew right away that this was the work of Islamic terrorists. It could not be anyone else.
The only other vivid memory I have of that day is going to a client’s (school was in session so I had nothing else to do), and arriving at the building to see two men about to begin some external paint work. The first one said, “Did you hear about the two buildings in New York that got hit by airplanes? Thousands of people died.” The second, who apparently lived without media, replied, “Do you think I’m stupid. Why are you telling me something dumb like that?” I butted in (I’m the butting in type): “It’s true. Airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Towers collapsed and thousands of people are dead.” The second man’s reaction, when a stranger corroborated what he thought was his colleague’s crude joke was instantaneous: “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
My world, on that day, became binary: before and after, good and evil, us and them. If you understood that they were out to kill us, I respected you. If you denied that us/them divide, I could no longer respect you. President Bush got it, so he suddenly rose in my estimation. The Democrats quickly began to weasel, both because they felt obligated to take an un-Bush position and because, in their multi-culti morally relativistic world, they could not avoid their “it’s-all-our-fault, the-Third-World-is-innocent” mantra. I began to see liberals, not as well-intentioned dreamers, but as morally blind people with a cultural death wish. By 2004, my political renaissance solidified: I began my blog and, for the first time in my life, I voted Republican.
I’m still hemmed in by my suburban concerns. My kids are older now, but my daily life focuses on childcare, housework and legal projects. My community looms so large in my life that I keep my political views to myself (and, as I always say, they don’t come up in discussions about childcare, housework and legal projects), and I work hard to preserve my blogging anonymity. But even as my daily life hums along essentially unchanged, I’ve changed. My world is no longer secure. My children are at risk. I’m at risk (and I’m a coward).
From here on out, I’m going to bet on and support the strong horse. And to me, the Republicans are the strong horse. I know that Republicans in Congress have spent my money like water. I know that, as part of political gameplaying, they’ve made weak and sometimes dishonest compromises. I know that they hold certain positions with which I do not agree. But the important thing is that the Republicans get it. Republicans understood on 9/11, as I did, that we had suddenly thrust upon us a war to the death with a civilization that would like to see us utterly destroyed — our institutions, our beliefs, our communities, our lives. And the fact that this civilization acts through gangs and individuals, rather than through national armies, has nothing to do with the threat it poses us, nor should it affect our decision to bend our will to destroying the enemy before it destroys us.
UPDATE: I’d just written the above when I read this Rick Moran essay at American Thinker. It’s description of the way liberals think we ought to honor 9/11, not with a focus on the dead, but with peace songs, pretty much explains why I cannot escape the feeling that my former political compatriots are morally blind people with a cultural death wish.
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Rick Moran’s post sums up so many things so well. Needed reading.
We have Evangelicals in our family; one of them visited Cornerstone Church, San Antonio, last year. Should you find the time to locate this week’s broadcast from that church (shown several times Chs. 370-378–DirectTV), you will be treated to a no holds barred assertion of America’s fight against today’s Islamic fascism. It’s the fiercest Sept 11 memorial I’ve seen.
He writes almost too painfully, sometimes choosing subjects too raw. But I like Vanderleun’s edited version of his Sept 11, 2001, posts from New York. There is something deeply moral, American about his stream of consciousness post.
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/006439.php
Vanderleun quotes:
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”- Thomas Jefferson
Beautiful and telling post..
People ask “Has anything changed since 9/11?”
My answer “Yes.. History and my friend Bookworm!”
ExP(Jack)
There are many different ways to commit suicide. You can do it by “cop”, by doctor, or through any number of ingenious methods. However, some of these methods tend to end up destroying not only you, but other people as well.
I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t really care if people wanted to kill themselves, so long as their decision didn’t drag anyone else unwillingly into the bargain. Aside from religious beliefs, given a choice between one person dieing and leaving another alive, to one person dieing and taking everyone else with him, most people will go with the former.
Sept. 11th gave me more insight into the nature of human character and psychology (good and bad) than any other event during my lifetime. It helped me to understand how historical events like WWII, the Cambodian genocide and all other massive tragedies of the human experience (including today) came to be. Like you, Book, I see many Republicans as subject to all the foibles of human weaknesses, such as greed, pettiness, small mindedness and, frankly, sheer stupidity at times….but, at least, they get it.
I wholeheartedly agree that most Republicans get it (RINO’s don’t seem to) but I do find myself discouraged that as a majority, implementation of their common sense policies can be impeaded by a minority weilding arcane rules and parlimentary procedure. Getting it and being able to do something about it are two different matters.
That your life became binary – me vs them – is perhaps one of the saddest legacies of 9/11. I cried too. I could not believe that people could complete such an inhumane act. Personally I remain confused by people who in the name of a greater cause commit great sin. I am horrified by the lengths that people will go to make a point. But I refuse to believe that war – on terror or anything else – is the answer. And in this world of yours – where people either get it or don’t – that makes me the enemy, and that is sad. You and I – despite the miles between us – are not that dissimilar. You live in fear that it might happen again. I live in fear of the consequences of your retribution.
No, Mikki, we see you as a Hobbit, lotus eater, grazing contentedly in the illusions of a world as you would like it to be rather than the world as it is. You “refuse to believe that war – on terror or anything else – is the answer” but you don’t have any answers to offer, yourself. So, it is left up to the rest of us to shoulder the fears and burdens of dealing with the world as it is, fending off the contempt and shear hatred of your fellow travelers for having disturbed their sweet dreams of a Utopian world that never was. Yes, you are very different from us – you wish to deal with the world as a child, the rest of us are forced to deal with it as adults.
Micki needs to read Steven Den Beste, and then clarify Micki’s axiomatic premises.
You and I – despite the miles between us – are not that dissimilar. You live in fear that it might happen again. I live in fear of the consequences of your retribution.
Then again, with that, Micki doesn’t have to read Steven Den Beste, Steven Den Beste has already read Micki straight and through. Here’s what I mean, this was what Den Beste, the author of the infamous USS Clueless, wrote.
http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/004407.html
9/11 didn’t bring us together. It’s true that in the immediate aftermath of the event that we all felt sadness and rage. But not about the same things.
…
We were all anguished. Some of us were anguished because we feared that there might be further and more devastating terrorist attacks against us. Others were anguished because they feared that this might inspire an entirely new round of bloody military aggression by America against innocent people around the world, and conversion of America into a police state.
We all saw clearly. But some of us were looking in a different direction. Some of us clearly saw the remorseless and ruthless murderers behind the attack, and knew that they were our mortal enemies who would attack us again if they possibly could, no matter what we did. Others were looking inward, and saw what they viewed as an ugly need for revenge amongst Americans.
We all vowed never again. Some of us vowed that we would do whatever it took to make sure that the terrorists didn’t strike us again. Others vowed that they would do whatever it took to make America stop doing all the evil things that had inspired the attack in the first place.
The only consensus on 9/11 was that a terrible tragedy had occurred. There was no consensus as to who was truly responsible. And that is why within hours we began to hear, “Ask yourselves why they hate you.” They knew that America had brought this onto itself; deep down they knew that we deserved it.
We all knew that reform was needed. Some of us thought it was the Arab/Islamic world which needed to reform. Others knew, deep down, that America was the true problem. To try to force reform onto the Arab world would be to renew the very mistakes which had caused the attack in the first place. And to even make the attempt would inspire more and more young Arab men to become terrorists against us, increasing the danger to us.
Some of us felt that the “root cause” of this war was Arab failure, and Arab shame at their failure. The others knew that the “root cause” was American failure, and America’s refusal to feel shame at its failure.
We were not united on 9/11 and we have not been united on any day since.
That’s quite a claim by Micki. That Danny and Micki are not all that “dissimilar”. United in fear of different things? That is not unity, that’s called dissension, mutual exclusivity, and A=!A
It’s simple. General A wants to go into the town and kill everyone in it, thereby winning the war. General B disagrees and says if you destroy the town, we will lose the war immediately. Are they on the same side? Presumably yes, but only one of them is right. Only one of them is on “the side”. The other is going to lead everyone to destruction.
You are either right or you are not right, pretty simple in life and death.
The big hole in Micki’s argument (sorry about the mis-spelling first time around, Micki)is the false dichotomy between “war is not the answer” and “revenge”. Knocking off the Taliban and fighting Saddam’s Iraq are no more “revenge” than is clearing out a nest of rattlesnakes to prevent them from entering your garden and harming your kids. It’s simply a matter of being practical. The 9/11 attacks proved to America that there was a festering problem and that the snakes were getting bolder. The child-like response is to wonder why the snakes bite us and whether we did anything to provoke them or otherwise hurt their feelings. We already know enough that feeding and otherwise appeasing snakes simply emboldens them. The adult response is to say that having snakes bite our kids and our families is unacceptable and that we must first clear out their nests. We can worry about rattlesnake psychology after the immediate danger has been removed. It has nothing to do with hating snakes or taking revenge on them.
Some of the people who approve of Afghanistan but not Iraq, really did want to kill Afghanistan because of revenge. That’s why they don’t complain about civilians killed in Afghanistan, tribal craziness and warlords. oh, the Democrats sometimes talk about puppets and warlords, but they know we know that they really aren’t excited by it.
Different people will have different motivations for their actions. The ability to understand which is whom’s, is a neat one.
Using deductive logic, ultimately Micki should be foremost worried about an attack occuring because the more attacks that occur in America, the more fearsome the retribution and punitive action of both Moonbats, Maroons, Democrats, and Republicans.
If Micki had the true enlightend self-interest of the US at heart, Micki would value the means that allows Micki’s goals to be accomplished. Yet Micki creates a false dichotomy, a binary, and you or me, them or us, sort of splitting scenario.
It’s a different split than the one I illustrated. I talk about same goals, different means. Micki talks about different goals, same means used to accomplish them.
When people have the same goals, that is simply a disagreement. When people have different goals, that is called being enemies.
I think “the ability to understand which is whose” sounds better.