Twelve years ago today a few misguided, self-righteous and violent individuals set out to injure what they saw as a dangerous free society capable of inspiring real change across the world by serving as a beacon of hope and liberty.
If their goal was to frighten that society into abandoning the core values of freedom, tolerance and justice that can serve as such a beacon, they succeeded.
My fellow Americans, it is time to accept that our great society frightens tyrants to the core. These tyrants, be they political, religious or social in their tyranny, must not cause us to turn our backs on the founding principles that made this country great, and are the source of their fear.
The message we chose to send was, “We’ll stop you next time.” The message should have been, “We will never change. And change is coming for you. It will be your own people that deliver it, inspired by our unwavering belief in free societies.”
The world is a scary and unpredictable place. Bad things happen to good people. Life is unfair. We all learned this in childhood, and now we have learned that the only thing worse than these facts is what happens when we attempt to mitigate them.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin
Never forget. Both what was done to us, and what we have done to ourselves and each other.
Kurt well spoken, the question is will anyone action.
WRT your Franklin comment, AC Grayling (UK philosopher) wrote a book entitled . Liberty in the age of terror. You may find it interesting.
Also watch the BBC documentary: The Power of Nightmares.