One thing that was shown to us as Americans on 9/11, is that we are a lot more vulnerable than we want to believe. A few men with box cutters staged a gigantic attack on America. Our feeling of invulnerability has left us forever.
Another thing we learned about ourselves, is that we do not always live up to what we say we believe. When the Patriot Act was passed, I was surprised at how little people seemed to care that they were losing a great deal of their freedom. When we practiced torture at Guantanamo, our elected officials went on television and talked about it as "Enhanced Interrogation". When we went into the war of choice in Iraq, we said corporate profits were more important than American lives.
Our world will never seem quite as safe as it once did and I, for one, will not be able to think of us as being as good as I once did.
Another thing we learned about ourselves, is that we do not always live up to what we say we believe. When the Patriot Act was passed, I was surprised at how little people seemed to care that they were losing a great deal of their freedom. When we practiced torture at Guantanamo, our elected officials went on television and talked about it as "Enhanced Interrogation". When we went into the war of choice in Iraq, we said corporate profits were more important than American lives.
Our world will never seem quite as safe as it once did and I, for one, will not be able to think of us as being as good as I once did.
