The Home of the Brave

Heh. Right.

Two stellar articles for your consideration from Hullaballoo and The Mahablog.

Good stuff.

I remember thinking to myself as our country began its devolution in the months after 9/11 that the question I desperately asked myself in those first few days was not being answered. "Where are the grownups?"

I remember watching those incredible images all day and I remember getting up from my chair five or six times to go get my kids from school only to reason with myself that they were safe (which they were). I remember the daze in which I found myself knowing the country was under attack and that the future was now wide open to anything - good or evil. I remember thinking that God was waiting for our response.

I think God is disappointed. I know I am.

• We had an opportunity to step up and be leaders in this new world order that had blasted two skyscrapers out of their moorings and killed thousands of innocent people.
  
• We had an opportunity to look around us in the smoke of destruction and ask who is responsible for this - seeking an honest answer.
• We had an opportunity to address global injustice, oppression, tyranny, and violence and determine what our role in each of those sins might be.
• We had an opportunity to face ourselves in the mirror of world opinion and make some adjustments to our appearance if not our substance, trusting that a superficial change might just take root in a deeper transformation.
• We had a chance to be grown ups.

Instead, we have chosen to be cowards and bullies, sacrificing our American values to enthrone a government that is resolved to protect us. The Founders must be spinning in their graves.