At The Risk

Of alienating the few readers that I have, let me be blunt. GET OVER IT! We can't change the past, but we can shape the future.

Violence begets violence and September 11, 2001 was no different. My heart grieves for those lost and those who remain terribly scarred by this incident, but there are tragedies every day. Every single day and people still pick up and move on.

Our nation's pain pales in comparison to the pain of the Afghani and Iraqi civilians who were needlessly killed in the "war on terror" while the real perpetrators have been gone from this mortal plane for five years and their leader is wandering free, free to laugh at us and to plot more heinous crimes.

It is past time for us to quit wallowing in self-pity and to remember that this country used to stand for freedom, democracy, a good standard of living, fresh air and an urge to improve the future. NOT: hiding in the dark, scared of some elusive bogeyman and willing to give up hundreds of years of freedoms in a futile attempt to make everything "safer".

If you want safer, improve the working conditions of the coal mines, poultry plants, infrastructure, and construction sites. Protecting oneself does not mean turning in your neighbors, restricting travel to a select few, being photographed wherever you go (what will the paparazzi do?), with all your financial, medical, credit and employment information available to anyone with a "badge". This does not make you safer, it makes you trackable. Like a UPS package. Privacy will no longer exist and you still won't be safe.

As we move towards becoming the totalitarian state that Russia was in the fifties and sixties, as we kill people without any proof of their guilt except for being in the wrong country with the wrong skin color, I wonder how a nation of 300 million people spread out over 3.5 million square miles can be brought to a halt by one man.

Elephants aren't scared of mice, why should we be scared of a rat in a monkey suit?