Refuse To Be Terrorized
Sep. 11th, 2010 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Nine years ago today, America was bit by a flea.
I don't say this to diminish the very real pain and suffering of those who died and those who mourn them. A good friend of mine lost several friends at WTC that day. 29 members of my profession died saving the lives of others without thanks or recognition, as is our typical lot. But the fact remains that our nation lost a few buildings and a few thousand people, a small matter in the world if an infinity of loss to those who died and those who loved them. We lost a lot more buildings in Katrina and a lot more lives to a plethora of other causes in the nine years since.
I opined publicly, both on the Internet and in person, and probably far too soon, that America could suffer a 9/11 style attack every day for a year and we would still be America. We would still be here and our nation would endure.
Fleabites. Really.
The only way we can lose America to fleas is to give in to the terrorists. One way of giving in is literal -- to make concessions to avoid being attacked again. We do not pay Danegeld. Our attackers -- and those who support them, those who harbor them, those who happen to be in the crossfire or in the wrong place at the wrong time -- are offered only one bribe, which is the spilling of their own blood. I am not afraid that we will become a Muslim sharia state, or make concessions to murderers and jihadists.
The other way of giving in to the terrorists is the one thing I really fear after September 11th. To make our country and our society too much about our fears of terrorism. To overreact. To continually live in fear and force others to live in fear, whether at home or abroad, because we had a bad day 9 years ago today.
What do you do after you have been bitten by a flea? Treat the injury, bathe your cat, get some anti-flea medication. Maybe call an exterminator.
Do you set a fire in your house to be sure of getting them all? Or threaten your neighbors with a 12-gauge because their dog might have given your cat fleas? Chase him out of his own house at gunpoint and bug-bomb his house for him? Post signs on the street saying "No unauthorized pets allowed!" and go out on the sidewalk and yell at people who walk their dogs past? Lock your 12 year old son in the crawlspace for hours armed only with a swatter and then treat all his resulting bug-bites and newly acquired fear of confined spaces? Shout at the dinner table, "You're either with me or you're with the fleas!" Tell your friend with the guide dog that they can't come over anymore because their dog might leave a flea in your house? Worst, do you teach your little children to hate and fear fleas to the point that you come home one day and see them stomping ants on the sidewalk and shouting "See, Daddy, I'm killing fleas! Lots of them!"
We've done all that and more.
It is in this light that I view the otherwise transitory flap about the "Ground Zero Mosque" (which is neither at Ground Zero, nor a mosque) as a slap in America's face. We built this nation on religious tolerance and on greed. If Sufi Muslims can scrape up enough money to buy property near the former WTC site, we should no more block them than we should block the Catholics or the Mormons or the Buddhists from doing exactly the same thing.
I won't insult those who lost loved ones on September 11th by telling them to stop grieving.
Everyone else needs to get the fuck over it now. Fight terrorism smart and hard, but never forget that terrorist acts are fleabites. Give them the back of our hand, but no respect -- and that includes in my opinion treating terrorists here and overseas as the pathetic criminals and lunatic psychotics they are, not as a credible threat to our cherished freedoms and way of life.
I applaud the efforts of some online who want to make September 11th religious tolerance day. I am intolerant of most organized religions, so I would feel somewhat hypocritical lending my support. However, anything that makes September 11th just another day in the calendar again is fine by me.
I don't say this to diminish the very real pain and suffering of those who died and those who mourn them. A good friend of mine lost several friends at WTC that day. 29 members of my profession died saving the lives of others without thanks or recognition, as is our typical lot. But the fact remains that our nation lost a few buildings and a few thousand people, a small matter in the world if an infinity of loss to those who died and those who loved them. We lost a lot more buildings in Katrina and a lot more lives to a plethora of other causes in the nine years since.
I opined publicly, both on the Internet and in person, and probably far too soon, that America could suffer a 9/11 style attack every day for a year and we would still be America. We would still be here and our nation would endure.
Fleabites. Really.
The only way we can lose America to fleas is to give in to the terrorists. One way of giving in is literal -- to make concessions to avoid being attacked again. We do not pay Danegeld. Our attackers -- and those who support them, those who harbor them, those who happen to be in the crossfire or in the wrong place at the wrong time -- are offered only one bribe, which is the spilling of their own blood. I am not afraid that we will become a Muslim sharia state, or make concessions to murderers and jihadists.
The other way of giving in to the terrorists is the one thing I really fear after September 11th. To make our country and our society too much about our fears of terrorism. To overreact. To continually live in fear and force others to live in fear, whether at home or abroad, because we had a bad day 9 years ago today.
What do you do after you have been bitten by a flea? Treat the injury, bathe your cat, get some anti-flea medication. Maybe call an exterminator.
Do you set a fire in your house to be sure of getting them all? Or threaten your neighbors with a 12-gauge because their dog might have given your cat fleas? Chase him out of his own house at gunpoint and bug-bomb his house for him? Post signs on the street saying "No unauthorized pets allowed!" and go out on the sidewalk and yell at people who walk their dogs past? Lock your 12 year old son in the crawlspace for hours armed only with a swatter and then treat all his resulting bug-bites and newly acquired fear of confined spaces? Shout at the dinner table, "You're either with me or you're with the fleas!" Tell your friend with the guide dog that they can't come over anymore because their dog might leave a flea in your house? Worst, do you teach your little children to hate and fear fleas to the point that you come home one day and see them stomping ants on the sidewalk and shouting "See, Daddy, I'm killing fleas! Lots of them!"
We've done all that and more.
It is in this light that I view the otherwise transitory flap about the "Ground Zero Mosque" (which is neither at Ground Zero, nor a mosque) as a slap in America's face. We built this nation on religious tolerance and on greed. If Sufi Muslims can scrape up enough money to buy property near the former WTC site, we should no more block them than we should block the Catholics or the Mormons or the Buddhists from doing exactly the same thing.
I won't insult those who lost loved ones on September 11th by telling them to stop grieving.
Everyone else needs to get the fuck over it now. Fight terrorism smart and hard, but never forget that terrorist acts are fleabites. Give them the back of our hand, but no respect -- and that includes in my opinion treating terrorists here and overseas as the pathetic criminals and lunatic psychotics they are, not as a credible threat to our cherished freedoms and way of life.
I applaud the efforts of some online who want to make September 11th religious tolerance day. I am intolerant of most organized religions, so I would feel somewhat hypocritical lending my support. However, anything that makes September 11th just another day in the calendar again is fine by me.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-11 04:50 pm (UTC)President Barack Obama, this morning:
"The perpetrators of this evil act didn’t simply attack America; they attacked the very idea of America itself -- all that we stand for and represent in the world. And so the highest honor we can pay those we lost, indeed our greatest weapon in this ongoing war, is to do what our adversaries fear the most -- to stay true to who we are, as Americans; to renew our sense of common purpose; to say that we define the character of our country, and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are."
no subject
Date: 2010-09-11 09:02 pm (UTC)Very eloquently put; Thank you for making this post.