WASHINGTON—Acknowledging they had been going back and forth on possible options for much of the past 15 years and that none really seemed to fit, citizens across the country confirmed Sunday they had decided to just go ahead and declare that “freedom prevails over hate” was the enduring lesson of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. “This issue comes up every anniversary, and everyone felt like we just needed to settle it once and for all, so we all agreed that 9/11 taught us that freedom will always conquer fear and hate,” said Canton, OH resident Matthew Boyd, 37, echoing the feelings of all 320 million Americans who, from this point forward, will reflect on the worst terrorist strike on U.S. soil by simply recalling the short phrase and leaving it at that. “We also considered ‘terrorism never wins’ or ‘freedom has a price’ as the lesson of September 11, but we’re just going with this one. It’s not perfect—I know some people are going to bring up how we lost some freedoms after the attacks and how there may be more hate now than before, but the bottom line is that all the other potential lessons had their own issues. This one works fine, and we want to just pick one and stick with it. So this is what it is now, and that’s that.” At press time, the nation was reportedly still sifting through the thousands of lessons learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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