Unfortunately, I think Robbo is probably right. And after it happens again, we'll all remember for about 6 months and then we'll be off debating the merits of Britney vs Lindsey and it won't matter to certain segments of society anymore. Assuming we are even told by our betters that anything has happened at all.

Some of us will always remember though. And will teach our children and grandchildren to remember.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Samuel Johnson

Its sad that this sort of hatred and jingoism is out there and on this blog, in such precious prose, but then I fully support the Constitution and everyone's right to be an idiot!

"Question authority." Dealers in the currency of bumper-sticker wisdom.

Hatred and jingoism, my friend? I'll go you one better and admit naked self-interest. I was near enough to the Pentagon attack to smell the smoke blowing across the Potomac. And Lord knows where that fourth plane was headed, but the odds are that its target was within a couple blocks of my office. Also, I pumped gas at several of the stations attacked by the Dee Cee sniper. And my office mail still takes a long time to get to me because it has to be X-rayed for anthrax contamination.

You know what? I don't want to die in the next attack. Call me selfish, but there it is.

You know what else? The government's first and foremost duty is to protect its citizens - "provide for the common defense" as one document once put it. And if I don't think the government is doing that job, you're damned right that I'm going to exercise my 1st Amendment right to say so.

Every night I pray with my boys "For our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that keep us safe abroad, and our police, fire and rescue that keep us safe at home. May God and the guardian angels protect them and bring them safely home to their families".

We have the strength. We must continue to have the will to accept that we are at war, there is evil in the world, and it is not our fault.

There are people who hate us simple because we live in a free society, and who equate openness with weakness that must be exploited.

We must be vigilant and we must act.

I refrained from replying to "SF" yesterday, both out of respect for the solemnity of the day, and because it so obviously not only SUPPORTS "everyone's right to be an idiot", but also EXERCIZES that right.

But I'm at a loss to find anything in LMC's post, less so in Robbo's Yip, that could be construed as "hatred and jingoism" except by the most hypersensitive members of the "Blame America First" crowd.

On that fateful day 8 years ago, I was working at a company that sold emergency supplies to first responders. Their customers included men and women who went INTO the towers and didn't come out. I recall the horror of watching people fly to their deaths -- in airplanes and out skyscraper windows. calling it "hatred and jingoism" to be sad and angry for ourselves and for the imediate victims is tatamount to saying a rape victim "Asked for it".

Robbo's and kmr's responses were spot on.

SF: We enjoy the highest standard of living in human history, so high it actually give our citizens the luxury of navel-gazing while spouting platitudes and dropping words like "jingoism". The ugly truth is that most of the world is a rathole and there are plenty out there who will kill us simply because we are Americans. I would rather fight them on the streets, the hills, of the Middle East than fight them on the streets of America. We cannot avoid the fight with radical Islam for if we do not fight them on our terms, we will surely fight them on theirs. If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, empty moral vanity is the last refuge of the cowardly.

LMC,

Before I even reached your last sentence, I was already thinking of the John Stuart Mill quote about the ugliness of war. Thank you.