Today marks the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that shook the nation and changed the world.
Today marks the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that shook the nation and changed the world. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day in New York City, Arlington County, Virginia and Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania. All of us who were alive that day no doubt remember the intense national unity Americans felt for a brief period of time.
This period of national unity, is no doubt looked back on as a contrast to the incessant bickering of national politics today.
But that period of national unity also blinded Americans to the vast and sweeping powers assumed by the federal government.
“The temptation U.S. leaders will struggle with in the next day or so is to respond intelligently and in a measured fashion rather than blindly and disproportionately,” wrote the late Orange County Register editorial writer Alan Bock in his Sept. 12, 2001 column published by Antiwar.com.
As the days, months and years that followed demonstrate, politicians opted for the blind and disproportionate route.
