I meant to get to this a while ago (sometime around September 11), but I just kept forgetting, or didn't have time, or just didn't feel like it. Whatever the reason doesn't matter, I'm doing it now.
I've read any number of different speculations about safety and concerns about life in general with respect to this issue and I honestly don't understand any of them.
On one hand there's the group that feels safer. Generally the GW supporters. OK, the government now has more power to get information from us and there are fewer obstacles in the way for collection of private information. This may make us safer from terrorists, but it makes us less safe from our own government. My own personal feeling is don't do something you're not supposed to do and you'll have nothing to worry about. Granted, what we think we should be able to do is frequently in question, but that's something for another time.
Then there's the crowd that insists we are less safe. Again, I'm not really sure how that's possible, because honestly I don't see any real difference in policy.
That being said, it doesn't address the sacrifices I've made since September 11, 2001.
The fact is, aside from having to take of my shoes at the airport, I don't see that I've made any real changes. I go to work, I come home, and life continues to move as it did before. Some groups hate the administration, some love it. That hasn't changed.
I still go to the store.
I can still go anywhere I want (mostly).
I'm still required to pay my bills and complain about my taxes.
I still support our troops, regardless of why they are wherever they're located.
Most politicians still have no clue what it's like to be a normal person.
The border with Canada and Mexico is still completely unguarded.
Most Islamic countries still hate Israel.
I still think isolationism is a great policy but completely impracticle.
I could go on, but I think you understand.
The only real difference is what happens at the airport. I can no longer go have a last beer at the airport bar with my buddy who is getting on a plane. If I'm flying, I have to wear sandals because I need to remove them and hate it when people hold me up putting on their shoes. How ridiculous is that? Some moron tries to light his shoes on fire because he has a "shoe bomb" and now everyone has to take off their shoes.
What if he had plastique shoved in his pockets? Would we then create a policy requiring us to take off our clothes? What if he had swallowed the bomb first, you know, in some sort of capsule or something? Would we then require everyone to take a crap before walking through security?
The fact is, aside from some ridiculous new restrictions, as well as the new Department of Homeland Security, which I should add gave the government bureaucracy an EXCUSE to create more bureaucracy, the average, everyday person is completely unaffected by the events of 911.
Just remember that next time someone mentions it and how they have had to sacrifice since 911. Nothing significant has changed and considering the stupid things that have changed, I'm not sure any of the changes were good.
Sacrifice requires giving something up.
The average person has given up nothing.
Comments...
DB wrote
10-10-2005 @ 22:58:44 (PST)
What, exactly, are you saying? The blanket statement that we haven't made sacrifices since 9/11? Ok, fine. We also haven't invented flying cars since 9/11. We also haven't acheived world peace or ended world hunger since 9/11. Your statement, while true, seems arbitrary.
These are just a few examples of people who have made sacrifices since 9/11. They're not necessarily your "average" American (afterall, anyone who thinks that a Muslim-American is an average American is a traitor, right?), but you can't say that nothing significant has changed when hundreds of thousands of people (including 2000 of your Americans, whose lives are intrinsically more valuable than the lives of people in other countries or so I'm led to believe) have died and the world will never look the same as a result.
If, however, your article is focused around the second to last paragraph, about how many people complain about the sacrifices they've made, who are these people?
(here's some ideas for you)
-Muslim-Americans suffering from racism.
-Families of the roughly 2,000 Americans who have died in wars that (honestly) probably wouldn't have happened.
-Sorry if I'm ruining this by stretching it outside of your worldview i.e. the US, but the hundreds of thousands of people in the muslim world affected by our response to 9/11, which has all the accuracy of a shotgun with a scope on it from three miles away.
But these are insignificant sacrifices, right? 'Cause you didn't make them?
Mookee wrote
10-11-2005 @ 19:47:47 (PST)
WAAAAA!!!If you would like me to truly be a jackass I could say that "Muslim Americans" (personally I prefer "Americans who are Muslim," and there is a difference) haven't made sacrifices, but rather those sacrifices have been pushed on them. As have all the "sacrifices" of anyone fighting overseas in your unjust war (unless they specifically quit jobs to join the military because of 911). This isn't a debate on the justness or unjustness of the war.
The dictionary's definition of "sacrifice" doesn't refer to to having things taken, that would be "theivery" or "stealing," which I'm not willing to discuss right now with reference to rights, responsibilities, or our government. I consistently try to get people to understand that policing oneself is of paramount importance in order to maintain rights.
But policing oneself includes your neighbor...and don't jump to conclusions. I'm not talking reporting them for masturbation in their backyard or pot smoking in their living room. "Snitching" is cowardly. Just like one's parents may have said not to snitch on your friends, there is a line that, when crossed, needs to be addressed.
For example, if someone I knew was writing on the wall, or littering, my response would NOT be to find a cop and get my friend in trouble, but rather to ask what they were doing and why they were doing it. If however, my friend were arbitrarily shooting people from the church steeple, it would be my responsibility to tell someone.
Certain aspects of the Muslim community, while should not be discriminated against for no reason, have demonstrated that they are unwilling to control themselves. Don't believe me? Check out the group in Fresno from this past summer (or was it Lodi...the central valley). They were actually supported by their local mosques.
But that's neither here nor there, I've gotten off topic. My second to last paragraph? "it requires giving something up." I covered that.
If the war is as unjust as you're making it, 9/11 wouldn't have mattered, the corrupt government would have found a way to fight it either way.
The terrorist community isn't, nor will it ever be, staying in the Middle East. Nor is it confined to Islam. Denying that a majority of terrorists are Islamic however, is ignorant and while narrow minded, unbelievably stupid. I'm not sure what that has to do with this either, but it's true.
Try not to compare me with people's whose lives have changed because they're in the military. Despite the fact that my service was prior to 9/11, and despite the fact that I hated every minute of it, I'm one of those people, and everyone over there is a volunteer. But since I was in and out before 9/11, my "sacrifice" was not a result of 9/11.
Stop putting on specific lenses because you know what side of the fence I sit on. I've said it before, no one knows what side I'm on, and that includes me. My third to last paragraph, while not detailed, does mention that the changes that have been made since 9/11 are both "stupid" and likely not good.
But whatever, I'm bored with this, I'm going to see if I can find more naked pictures of Brooke Burke.
DB wrote
10-12-2005 @ 16:17:11 (PST)
Sounds like a much more worthwhile use of both of our time.
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