The funny thing, in retrospect, was that I had actually chosen to listen to news radio before I’d even gotten in the car that morning – something I never, ever do. I was just starting a six hour drive to Southern Oregon, but had forgone rocking out to CDs because of the huge, game changing news – the news that would change everything – that was expected to be announced that day: Michael Jordan’s newest come-back from retirement. That was quickly forgotten, obviously, and I spent six straight stunned hours of commercial-free radio listening to the day’s events unfold. (Not a lot of people remember this, but part of what made that day more surreal than it might have already been were the constant reports of explosions, unexploded bombs being found in public places, and plane crashes occurring throughout the country. With the exception of the Pentagon crash all proved to unsubstantiated, as journalists gave in to the national hysteria.)
Some posters here will have been close enough – either to New York or to some of the people who perished – to talk about the event in ways that living in Oregon I just can’t; others will do a much better job of discussing the meta effects on today’s political sphere better than I could ever hope to do. So I will leave those tasks to them. What I will choose to share, then, are the two lessons I have chosen to take from 9/11 and the vows they compel me to make to myself.
The first is a reaction that I know will puzzle many: When I reflect on 9/11 now, I feel unbelievably lucky to be living at this time and in this place. I note that Jason has touched on this already, but in my lifetime the defining horror – the national tragedy – was the death of 3,000 people. I in no way want to make light of their deaths, or minimize the act of evil that took them from their loved ones too early. But if this isn’t just as bad as it gets in my lifetime, but so far ahead of the next bad thing that it’s still at least partly how we frame almost any national debate 10 years later, then I recognize that I am undoubtedly and undeservedly blessed. My father’s part in his generation’s nation horror was fighting in that Pacific Theatre in WWII; my grandfather’s doing similar duties in France and Germany a World War prior. When I think about this, I vow to never forget my love for the country, people and – yes – even government that, for whatever it’s ongoing annoyances and problems, has allowed this period of grace.
The second lesson I take away has to do with how little it can take to choose to abandon that grace.
I would very much like to be able to say that immediately after 9/11 I was able to look at the events with a calm sense of Big Picture that I think I do now – but this would be a lie. I wanted blood; I wanted revenge. And this desire was both primal and palpable. This is why I have empathy for those in the Bush administration that presented the case of why we really, really needed to go into Iraq. I know that now it’s my job as a Bush-hater to decry his purposeful lies, designed only to expand his power base and line the pockets of his Vice President and other assorted cronies. But I still don’t buy this line; the truth is I think most of us at the time would have come to similar conclusions with just about any mixed bag of piss poor evidence. So I also vow to remember this lesson when the next Bad Thing happens, in the hopes that I don’t advocate rash actions that kill so many people because it just feels right.
And that’s really what I choose to take away from the event that Changed Everything – because at the end of the day, for most of us, I don’t know that all that much has actually changed. We’re in wars that we can’t get out of, but for good or bad (I’d argue bad) two administrations in a row have done a masterful job of running them in a way that provides literally no inconveniences of any kind to the general populace. And it’s also true that a certain kind of social conservative has made a seamless transition from The Terrorists Are Evil to All Muslims Are Evil and have been (I believe) shamelessly exploited by political and media powers, but let’s face it – that kind of person was going to find an Enemy with a hatred that could be exploited by those powers anyway. And it’s led to a significant pendulum swing-back in the civil liberties department, but I’ve been around long enough to know this debate has always been going on, and that swing would have happened eventually anyway. And I know that eventually it will come back this way again.
To those that lost loved ones on that day, or any day since due to the actions we have chosen to take, my thoughts, wishes and prayers are with you this weekend. I wish you all the happiness that is possible now and in the future.
Tom, I don’t even know where to begin in resounding to this.
How many muslims live in this country? How many live in NY? Is it 13?Report
Well, then begin, Tod, because I’m appalled at what I read here lately, pontifications that ignore so much reality. The threat is real, and the rest is just another charge of racism or whatever. “Social conservatives” are not as a whole hassling Muslims. Feh. farmer gets it.
,i>Two observations: the social conservative comment was gratuitous and not really true except among a statistically insignificant group of haters. The great majority of conservatives, social or otherwise, would say that Muslims aren’t necessarily evil, just theologically mistaken, but that radical Islam is counter to their Christian beliefs in what’s good and just. This can be debated, but conservatives as a whole don’t believe that all Muslims are evil. If you can show me a large, socially conservative organization or Christian religious sect which states this, then I will admit you are right.Report
Tom – When did I call you a racist? Sometimes I think when you engage me you want to argue with a Generic Liberal, but that’s not who I am.
Regarding Farmer, yeah… but may I point out that you were just the one that told me I was off base by suggesting my All Muslims Are Evil line was actually true and should be taken seriously?Report
I don’t take it seriously atall. The statement I highlighted is mere and mindless slander, Tod. It’s all grist for the mill.Report
Then I apologize, as I must have read your initial comment wrong. Can I ask you to rephrase it?Report
Other commenters have expressed the same reservations about the OP, Tod, and more effectively. It’s not just me.Report
But Tom, I’m asking you. And not to challenge, but to find common ground. I have a hard time believing we are not pretty close on this and just talking past one another.Report
Well, Mr. Farmer has encapsulated my primary objection far better than I.
As for the civil liberties thing, condemnations of it seldom examine the possibility that the stringent measures may have saved us from some major shit. [They don’t tell us everything they thwarted; you keep the intel stream live as long as you can. I for one was unaware 13 attacks have been thwarted in NYC since 9-11. That’s a lot.]
The current airport security regime seems asinine, but I must wonder if the whole circus hasn’t discouraged the bad guys from even trying. Prophylaxis seldom reveals its alternatives.
As for the assertions on Iraq, I stopped litigating it around 2006 in the intertubes, for it serves no purpose. I do give you a full point [two!] for saying it was an understandable overreaction, rather than a bland and boilerplate condemnation of the sort that you limn well here.Report
Like most times when we clash sabers, I’m not entirely convinced we disagree on much. As I said to Mike, I don’t believe that all or even most social conservatives vilify Muslims. But as I also said to him, I don’t think doing so on socially conservative TV and radio stations would happen if there weren’t some place to get traction. This isn’t because social conservatives are social conservatives, it’s because they’re human, and this type of enemy finding and demonization is sadly a pretty human thing to do.
Regarding your point on civil liberties, I agree, and suspect that neither you are I are in either the All or Nothing camps on this issue.
Agreed on the airports, and obviously on the last bone you threw me. (Which was appreciated.)Report
ya. and there’s dead christians, killed by christians that we haven’t stopped. At least two incidents since 9-11 (and those are just off the top of my head)Report
“And it’s also true that a certain kind of social conservative has made a seamless transition from The Terrorists Are Evil to All Muslims Are Evil and have been (I believe) shamelessly exploited by political and media powers, but let’s face it – that kind of person was going to find an Enemy with a hatred that could be exploited by those powers anyway. And it’s led to a significant pendulum swing-back in the civil liberties department, but I’ve been around long enough to know this debate has always been going on, and that swing would have happened eventually anyway. And I know that eventually it will come back this way again.”
Two observations: the social conservative comment was gratuitous and not really true except among a statistically insignificant group of haters. The great majority of conservatives, social or otherwise, would say that Muslims aren’t necessarily evil, just theologically mistaken, but that radical Islam is counter to their Christian beliefs in what’s good and just. This can be debated, but conservatives as a whole don’t believe that all Muslims are evil. If you can show me a large, socially conservative organization or Christian religious sect which states this, then I will admit you are right.
The second is your belief that things seem to operate in pendulum fashion, that if civil liberties are being violated, the societal pendulum will somehow automatically swing back to liberty. History is full of events in certain countries, regions, States, which signaled a major change and the pendulum effect wasn’t operational — from the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Empire to the current Middle East shows that major changes can overtake a people, due to the choices and actions of many individuals, and the changes can lead to long term loss of freedom.Report
Mike – Regarding this: ” the social conservative comment was gratuitous and not really true except among a statistically insignificant group of haters. The great majority of conservatives, social or otherwise, would say that Muslims aren’t necessarily evil, just theologically mistaken, but that radical Islam is counter to their Christian beliefs in what’s good and just.” I get where you are coming from this, and my desire to see each side as different sides of the same coin wants me to agree. But the fact is when I look at socially liberal media outlets, pundits and politicians, I don’t see them being pushed to decry Muslims in the way that I see their socially conservative counterparts. Seriously, if I told you that the host of a news network did a piece on how most Mosques were a hotbed of terrorist sympathizers biding their time to commit acts of violence or impose Sharia law, would you really even bother to ask “Oh? Which network?”
Regarding the second part of that quote, I’d really like to agree with that as well, but just a minute before your post hit someone else (a pretty tame, sane and rational thinking social conservative) posted that I was wrong in suggesting All Muslims are Evil was a fallacy.
Your point about the pendulum is also on the mark; however, you and I just have a (very) different opinion about where we are today on that spectrum.Report
Rod, I think there are many reasons to criticize social conservatives, and I’ve done so, but the tendency here to make hyperbolic claims regarding conservatives doesn’t ring true and weakens the overall message.Report
Mike, there was a reason I purposefully worded my point with “a certain kind of” social conservative.
If I were writing on Unions and said “a certain kind of social liberal would rather see a corporation go bankrupt than beat a union in benefit negotiations” would you not agree that was correct, but also agree that it was not therefore true of all liberals, and am I guessing right that you would not be so upset about the wording?
My believing that all social conservatives are wrong-headed or silly would be a huge mistake on my part. Your believing that no social conservatives are wrong-headed or silly would be a huge one on yours.Report
The number of statistically insignificant social conservatives who think this not worth the mention – it only works to smear conservatives for no good reason. If you had said the great majority social conservatives don’t believe all Muslims are evil, it would have negated any point you were making, so it was just unnecessary. There are probably people from all political and religious make-ups who believe all Muslims are evil — maybe they have some psychological hangup, but it doesn’t speak for their group, so why even mention the group?Report
But Mike, I don’t think the number is statistically insignificant. And I think it’s important. Because of all the added hassles that I may have had to go through, or the civil rights I worry about losing, it is less then my friends and neighbors who are Muslims.
But maybe I just dreamt the strong support among social conservatives when Hermans Caine said he would never have a Muslim cabinet member:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/herman-cain-if-im-president-i-wont-appoint-muslim-judges-or-cabinet-members/
And maybe I only dreamt that socially conservative Oklahama passed Question 755, which served no legal purpose other than to tell Muslims they weren’t particularly welcome:
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Oklahoma_%22Sharia_Law_Amendment%22,_State_Question_755_(2010)
Or maybe I just imagined social conservative leaders getting behind Tennessee social conservatives who didn’t want Muslims to build a house of worship even though they had a Constitutional right to do so:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100617/NEWS06/6170326/Murfreesboro-mosque-plan-ignites-backlash
(Not to mention the New York hubbub)
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/islamic-center-ground-mosque-controversy-heats/story?id=11435030
or FOX News social conservative hosts that say that Muslims aren’t good enough Americans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7hybO575e4
Or the outcry of social conservatives on TV, radio and stump speeches that a Muslim elected to office would dare consider the Koran a Holy Book:
http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2006/11/28/america,_not_keith_ellison,_decides_what_book_a_congressman_takes_his_oath_on
Or a national socially conservative morning show (highest rated cable morning show, by the way) saying that only Muslims are terrorists
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201010150002
Or social conservative talking head after the Ft. Hood tragedy declaring that it isn’t radical elements that are to blame, its Islam itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUCOoatudP4
or this doofus:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200708080001
or the most popular socially conservative of them all save Limbaugh claiming that the Muslims all around us in our country are in fact terrorists:
http://www.examiner.com/tv-in-national/glenn-beck-s-muslim-terrorist-claims-taken-on-by-fareed-zakaria-video
I mean, seriously, I get that you and Tom, and really most social conservatives I know don’t fall into the category I identified. But if they really don’t exist at all, why do they appear on social conservative media all the time, and why do they have such a large cheering section?Report
If you said there is a certain kind of union member who believes all owners are evil, I’d say it’s irrelevant, unless the subject was about this small group, because i don’t think but a small group, insignificant in numbers, believe that. It just wouldn’t be relevant to include that sentence, because that small number is not representative of anything but the warped thinking of a very few.Report
“Seriously, if I told you that the host of a news network did a piece on how most Mosques were a hotbed of terrorist sympathizers biding their time to commit acts of violence or impose Sharia law, would you really even bother to ask “Oh? Which network?””
I don’t think like that — regardless of the media outlet, I would only ask if it’s true and if there’s any proof to substantiate the claim.Report
If you had to bet your life on it?Report
Since 9-11 many people claiming to be conservatives, especially the radically pro-Israeli neo-conservative movement have expressed opinions like this one:
http://athens-and-jerusalem.blogspot.com/2008/03/gaza.html
and
http://athens-and-jerusalem.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-israeli-politics.html
Support for ethnic cleanisng used to be an almost exclusively left wing policy. But, the Israelization of US politics combined with the rise of Likud have resulted in a lot people who identify themselves as “conservatives” joining the ranks of left wing socialists like David Ben Gurion.Report
Support for ethnic cleanisng used to be an almost exclusively left wing policy
Um. No. Not even close. In fact I challenge you to point at a time in history where this was true.Report
In the years 1945-1950 almost all incidents of ethnic cleansing were done by left wing governments. The USSR under Stalin, the Polish and Czech forces that took power after the Nazi defeat, Tito in Yugoslavia, the Zionists under Ben Gurion in Palestine. Or are you claiming Stalin and Tito were right wingers?Report
Stop before you hurt yourself, JOtto. Stalin was a right-winger. Tito. Mao. Pol Pot. The Taliban. The Iranian mullahs, you name it. The Hutus, or the Tutsis, whichever ones did the doing, I forget. Robespierre. You don’t speak the language yet.Report