9/11/13 : Twelve years of letting the terrorists win

I’m going to sidestep the normal gun heavy discussion I tend to have and focus on my Libertarian roots.

I cannot help but look at the past twelve years and see all that we lost. Starting with the 2700+ killed in New York, the 343 fire fighters who died in the line of duty, those in the pentagon and those in the plane that struck it.

Then I think of Flight 93 and the heroes on board. The first and the last victory the people of this country had against the war on terror.

Because everything afterward has been a continued and steady victory for terrorism.

See, when terrorists commit to something, dying is pretty much a moot point. Therefore killing them doesn’t actually change the scoreboard. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for killing terrorists, but that is just a show to cover the continuing defeats that we have faced over the past 12 years here at home.

“What defeats” you say? “We haven’t had anymore buildings get blown up or planes get knocked down” you exclaim.

No. We’ve taken the fight to the terrorist and we haven’t had buildings blown up, planes taken down by shoe bombers or underwear bombers or chemical/nuclear/biological attacks. Those attacks are on broad scales and easily defined.

We, as Americans have been losing by small degrees.

Those degrees have culminated in the loss of our way of life.

“We’re told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win”

“If Americans begin to yield their own freedoms at home, the terrorists have won.”

“Our response to terrorism should be carefully measured. If our First Amendment rights suffer as a result of a terrorist attack the terrorists have indeed, won.”

Any of these sound familiar?

Unfortunately, it was then that President Bush made his biggest blunder. The Patriot Act. And most of the county, like willing supplicants begging for alms to quiet their fears lapped it up.

I’ve no doubt Mr. Bush had good intentions with the Patriot Act, the TSA, Homeland Security and all the rest. But as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

So now we find ourselves in a country, led by President Obama who has expanded on Bush’s mistake and we find ourselves with no privacy, no free travel, no 4th Amendment rights, at the whims of federal and local authorities to shred the constitution on a whim all for the dog and pony show of combating terror and to keep us (the sheep) safe.

Ben Franklin, founding father and all around genius once put his thoughts on the matter so eloquently that they cannot be improved upon by saying:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

To anyone who was molested by a TSA agent, thrown in cuffs “just cuz” in NYC, or had the IRS try and ruin their lives because of what they wrote on the internet; I’m sure you have a very personal take on what this blanket of safety really feels like.

We have been losing the war on terror for the past 12 years because we have been losing our way of life. Bush started it but Obama has made it so much worse.

Unfortunately, it seems only Libertarians are willing to acknowledge the fact that both major parties have had their hand to play in this, so R’s and D’s just keep fiddling with each other while the Constitution burns.

If remembrance of 9/11 makes you sad it’s all right, it was a tragedy and pain should be tinged with the memory. For me, looking at what my country has become over the last 12 years holds the same.

Lost rights…lost freedoms…lost liberty…

I just hope that it is not too late and the war is not lost. I hope that the sleeping giant that is America (and not its government) rouses from its slumber and smashes the chains of its own imprisonment before they are shackled too tightly.

9/11 is a day of sadness…but also a day of hope.

Come on America…let’s roll.