What do you think of when you think of September 11th? Where were you when the towers were hit, when they fell down, and were no more?
I was in my sister's place. I had been out late the night before and got a call from my girlfriend in Japan. She franticly told me to turn on the TV.
So I did, and sat transfixed in front of the screen for the rest of the day.
It was a horrible day. I still got weepy discussing the events a year later with friends when I was back in Japan. In early September of 2012 me and two other Americans sat in silence, each with a beer in our hands, knowing we couldn't say anything without breaking down in tears.
As time has gone on the pain has gotten less of course. The people who died were strangers. It was a horrible incident that changed the world, but it was far away from me, and now is far enough away in time to give some perspective.
But what about the legacy of 9/11? What has it left us? What have we learned?
Barak Obama said in his inauguration speech that America had "chosen hope over fear." Maybe we did choose hope in November when we voted him in, but look around now. Look at the world of 2011. Look at the changes to our society.
It appears to me that we chose fear.
We allow our leaders to send young soldiers to war, thinking we may be able to stop a madman with wmd's - never mind the fact that it was still an illegal war of aggression, even if he had had stacks of bombs just waiting to be shot off.
We allow schools, afraid of random shootings and afraid of their own students, to suspend or expel students for drawing pictures of weapons. Zero tolerance laws make schools into prisons for kids, but I guess that's just training for when many youths will later be sentenced to real time for minor drug violations that later lead to worse punishment under harsher and harsher laws.
And we allow cops many states to stop and question people doing "suspicious acts" like taking pics of buildings with no aesthetic value, or writing notes on a notepad. What ever happened to good old fashioned police work, gathering evidence, relying on facts rather than hunches and racial profiling?
We as a society have chosen safety from unseen boogiemen instead of freedom.
We allow all kinds of humiliations when boarding planes, all under the idea that it may help stop a terrorist - even though everything from checking shoes to the porno backscatter scanner are all just reactions to failed terrorist plots. How many humiliations will we put up in the name of "safety?" Apparently a lot. And believe you me, I know I feel a lot safer after having a tired, sweaty guy examining my balls before I get on a plane. But what if a terrorist puts a remote control bomb in their ass? Will we then gladly bend over and spread em while waiting in line? Maybe they'll let me hum a k-pop tune while said guy puts his hairy knuckles into my ass.
OK, I'm getting a little gross and a bit long winded. My point is, I guess, is that if we learn anything from the 9/11 attack and the aftermath, it has to include the lesson that life is short. There are bad people out there, but is it OK to let fear of the bad men dictate (and possibly ruin) your life? I hope the answer is no. I hope we can put this in the past, try to build a world that doesn't breed terrorists, and return to some state of sanity.
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