September 11, 2002

One year ago. 

One year ago today .... Royal starts playing that musical bumper that tells me it's time for the 8:47 break.  As usual ... I'm running a minute or so behind.  I utter the requisite "we'll be right back,"  and as the bumper fades to a commercial I look up to see the CNN monitor in the studio flicker to a live shot of Manhattan.  There's smoke coming from one of the World Trade Towers.  Belinda comes into the studio to tell me that a small plane hit the tower.  "They think it was a twin engine."

I look at the television picture.  There are clear skies over New York.  Not a cloud.  I realize it wasn't an accident, and I know a small airplane can't do that damage.  I tell Belinda "It was terrorism," and head for the TV set in my office.  The news department will be taking over and I realize I won't be back on the air until the national portion of the show begins at ten.

So, that's how it starts.  My program notes for September 11, 2001 included notes about another Michael Jordan comeback and the Democrats plan to remove even more of their core constituency from the tax rolls with by absolving them of the responsibility for much of their Social Security and Medicare taxes.  But at 8:47 that morning everything changes. In just over 17 minutes, the time it takes Islamic murderers to slam two commercial airliners into the two towers of the World Trade Center, September 11^th becomes another date endured as an anniversary of horror ... right there alongside December 7, 1941.

On this first anniversary of the attacks there will be many events to memorialize the men and women who died one year ago.  Some were heroes, others victims.  We'll never completely understand the depth of courage and determination shown on that day, both by those who survived, and by those who  brought them to safety ... or died trying.

You don't measure the losses from a terrorist attack, nor would you measure the death of a nation in human lives alone.  Today we also mourn the further destruction of those institutions that made our nation great; and the most precious of these institutions – and the most imperiled, freedom.

Most Americans make the mistake of assuming that freedom's enemies will always strike from outside our borders.  Certainly in the last year we have learned that we don't have to travel to the mountains of Afghanistan to find those who would take our freedoms.  We can find them right here at home serving as elected officials.  They're on our streets driving minivans to soccer practice.  They're in our newspapers, magazines and on our televisions. 

Some of these people fear liberty because of the perceived chaos that accompanies freedom of thought and action.  Others eagerly trade their freedoms away for the illusion of security.  And others, especially those in elective office, fight any freedoms that interfere with their eternal quest for more and more political power.

Just how long did it take --- how many hours, days or weeks passed --- before some politicians started hatching schemes to take political advantage of the attacks by the Islamic Jihadists?  Did the politicians devise their plans to use these attacks as a way to increase their power before or after private citizens came up with schemes to use them to enhance their personal wealth?  Did Tom Daschle lust over the possibility of 50,000 new federal employees before or after that man from middle Georgia filed a phony life insurance claim for the loss of a wife he said was at Ground Zero when death arrived?

And just how long did it take after these cowardly attacks for so many of our fellow citizens to start thinking about how much they were willing to give up to be assured that this would never happen again?

Just why did these Muslims attack us, and can it be said today that their attack failed or succeeded?

For starters, you can forget blaming our involvement in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The so-called Palestinians have never been much more than useful fools for the Islamic Jihad movement anyway; pathetic tokens to be used to further the dominance of Islam over first the Middle East, then the world.

No --- they didn't attack America because of our support for Israel, just as they don't love us because we have committed U.S. troops to battle three times in the past 12 years; in Kuwait, Somalia and Kosovo, to protect Muslims.  They attacked America because America is the prime and glaring example of the very human values that spell certain doom to their dream of Islamic world domination.  America was targeted because we're free and because we repeatedly show that we can change our own leadership without violence, without bloodshed and turmoil.  Leadership changes make the mullahs nervous.  America was targeted because we are a nation that demonstrates, day after day, how many different religions; Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism; can live and prosper together. We were targeted because we have shown the world that a rule of law, not the mindless and cruel dictates of a religious cult, can protect the peace and ensure the harmony of people of all faiths living together in liberty.  We were targeted, and we remain a target, because we've been on a roll for over 400 years and still haven't reached our peak --- while Islam reached its cultural dominance 500 years ago and it's been pretty much been rocketing down a mud slide to hell since then.

Now, one year later, just what have the Islamic Jihadists we call terrorists accomplished?  Well, they destroyed two of America's landmarks, and damaged a third.  They killed over 2,800 people.  They brought death and destruction on their own people and their violent religious cult --- for them, a small price that they pay willingly.  But, beyond that, is it possible the Muslim murderers accomplished more than they dared hope?  Is it possible that they've struck an even more serious blow to freedom and liberty than they had imagined?

Maybe the answer could be found in a poll taken about two weeks ago.  It was this year's installment of an annual poll on the public's attitudes toward our Bill of Rights.  The majority of people who responded to this poll said, in essence, that we have too many freedoms in America, and they are perfectly willing to trade some of these freedoms for protection against further attacks from the Islamic Jihadists.  Over one-half of the people who participated in this poll said that the rights protected in the first ten amendments to our Constitution were too broad, and they needed to be scaled back --- all in the name of security. 

The least popular freedom?  Freedom of the press.  That very portion of our First Amendment that protects our right to a free flow of information about an entity that can legally use deadly force to accomplish its goals – our government – and this is the least popular portion of our Bill of Rights? 

Every tyrant needs complete control over the means of communication.  China controls access to the Internet, as do many other totalitarian countries.  You can be jailed in many Islamic theocracies for simply owning a satellite dish. When leftist revolutions occur, the sources of communication and information are the first things to be seized.  In America – post 9/11 – we have a majority of citizens who, on the one hand, will profess their love of freedom; but who, on the other hand, will tell you that there is just too much freedom of the press, and the government needs to do something about it.

Could the Islamic Jihadists have known that Americans would react this way to their murderous attack?  You know, it doesn't really matter.  Planned result or not, the terrorists have much to celebrate.  Their hatred of our freedoms caused them to attack, and our love of freedom has become a casualty.

Now, here we are, one year later.  It's September 11, 2002.  The offices that were destroyed in the Pentagon are being refurnished and reoccupied.  The location of the crash of United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania is hallowed ground, and the site of the World Trade Towers has been turned from a clean-up project to a construction project.  Physical damage is easily repaired.   Not so, the damage to our national mindset.

The National Archives of the United States have an interesting little project going on.  You can go to the National archives website and virtually sign the Declaration of Independence.  You type your name, select a colonial era writing style, and then print out a full color copy of the Declaration with your signature right down there with those of our founding fathers.  Before you sign, though, you are asked to remember what happened to many of those who actually did sign in 1776.  These men pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom.  Their signatures made them traitors in the eyes of the King.  Rewards were posted for their capture – and the British armada was waiting offshore.  Sign, and risk losing everything?  Or not sign and live securely, though not free, under British rule?

Would the American people choose the path of liberty today?  Would the same people who think that our Bill of Rights goes too far be willing to pledge their lives, their fortune and their honor to fight for freedom above security?  Many of the men who signed the Declaration died because of that signature.  Others lost their property, their liberty and their families.  Do men like that walk among us today?  Are we, as Americans, worthy of their sacrifice?

Today our government is seizing American citizens and locking them away without any due process.  There is precedence for this.  The British did much the same thing after our Declaration was signed.  Then we fought the injustice.  Today we make excuses for it.

Maybe we can spend this first anniversary of September 11^th honoring those who died and those who protected us.  Maybe, just maybe, after today we can try to rededicate ourselves to the same principals that brought us the men and women who put their lives on the line in 1776.  America is great because we are free.  America is great because those who came before us valued freedom above security.  America was attacked because our freedom is a threat to tyrants, religious and otherwise.  Are you one of those who profess your willingness, even eagerness, to trade away some of that freedom?  Is it security you now seek?  Perhaps you should consider those in our society who are truly secure.  They live in solitary confinement in some of our prisons.  We call them "maximum security prisons" for a reason.

What is our choice going to be?  Will we chose a secure life overseen by your friendly local government warden, or will we chose the brilliance and uncertainty of freedom?

It's September 11^th, 2002.  It's time to decide.

© 2002 Neal Boortz