What does 9/11 mean to you?

Curmudgeon wrote: It's also become the cornerstone for every nutcase out there who will take advantage of all America offers in the way of freedom and opportunity only to complain about and denigrate that same society when steps are taken to try to keep it together. To those, I say: Stop it. Just stop.

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. It is the harder road to love your countrymen enough to stand up for them when they are being misled or taken advantage of. They might even hate you for it.

I understand dissent. I don't understand what comes across as outright hatred of those who are at least trying to something, even if they are just bumbling around. Or the whackjobs who swear the US government itself was behind the whole thing.

I'm short on battery life, I'll respond later.

But, let me share a beautiful letter written by the son of a friend of mine:

Jonathan Eliff's letter on evil

Curmudgeon wrote: I understand dissent. I don't understand what comes across as outright hatred of those who are at least trying to something, even if they are just bumbling around. Or the whackjobs who swear the US government itself was behind the whole thing.

Our government has in the past conspired and been caught. From the the Lusitania to the Iran/Contra affair and many, many more. I don't think people clinging to 9/11 conspiracy theories are correct in this case or being very productive - but they are also just bumbling around.

Without someone to raise questions (they can't all be good questions....) we would never get any answers so even the whackjobs serve a purpose.

In reply to SVreX:

Apparently, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That sounds like the ramblings of one of the aformentioned whackjobs to me. To each his own I guess.

BTW: You will have to fix the link to share that with the less tech saavy on here. It mistakenly includes GRM in the beginning.

Curmudgeon wrote: I understand dissent. I don't understand what comes across as outright hatred of those who are at least trying to something, even if they are just bumbling around. Or the whackjobs who swear the US government itself was behind the whole thing.

I can't understand those whackjobs either, seriously why would they blow up the buildings?

Well, at least we didn't round up all the Muslims in NYC and put then in detention camps as we did with the Japanese in 1942. But the FBI has been doing there bit by setting up stings.

aussiesmg wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote: I understand dissent. I don't understand what comes across as outright hatred of those who are at least trying to something, even if they are just bumbling around. Or the whackjobs who swear the US government itself was behind the whole thing.

I can't understand those whackjobs either, seriously why would they blow up the buildings?

The same reason Kennedy had to stop the military from blowing up a "fake" passenger airliner over Cuba? Was that the Greenwood project? I can't seem to remember the name of it now.

*I'll qualify that with I don't believe that the gov't/Bilderberg or whatever conspiracy theory caused this attack.

You could almost hear a resounding "berkeley yeah!" in Baltimore when the question "does that star-spangled banner yet wave?" was asked.

Cold beer, hot wings, air conditioning, and football on a bigass TV is what 9/11 means to me. Enjoy eating goat on a dirt floor while bombs drop on your head, you smelly weird-beard mother berkeleyers.

U.S.A.!!!!

While there was a huge tragedy and truly heroic moments, I think the reaction was on script from the OBL point of view - up to the point we invade a country that had nothing to do with it - still a wtf moment in my mind. Eventually, we pissed away a lot of international good-will towards us, got an even bigger toll of healthy young men killed or maimed and contributed to an epic economic downturn. While not as dramatic as dropping skyscrapers in Manhattan, and not at the same time, we're willing to tolerate more than 12,000 deaths per year to maintain our freedoms, namely the right to bear arms (I have several guns btw). It aggravates me that we allowed those berkeleytards to have a bigger effect on our freedom and rights than our own citizens. Now we seem pretty tolerant of giving up hard won liberties, but I guess any good scare and we'll jump pretty high.

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

I respect that. Link fixed.

I'd like to write a beautiful essay on what it has meant to me, but 10 years after, I am still lacking words. I lost friends, dreams, and direction in more ways than I had realized.

I try hard to not be "preachy", and obviously didn't impress some of you with that earlier link, so I am really hesitant to post this. But I was a first time guest in a church this morning and found myself weeping through this sermon. It summarizes my experiences very well, as well as my feelings, my errors, and my misdirected hopes and visions. It has inspired me, and perhaps it will inspire some of you as well. He put into words that which I still can't say.

It is a full length sermon in a church, so you've been warned. If that's not your kind of stuff, please don't bother watching, nor posting related rants.

The God of Hope"- Brian Bloye

I'll get back to my more cautious and PC self, but I really felt I couldn't avoid sharing this.

Ten years, Osama is dead, lets get over it.

T.J. wrote:

Appleseed wrote: None of those people deserved to die that day.

I think there were 19 who deserved it.

Those 19 were not human beings.

As a pilot, is was creepy to look up and not see planes. Any of them. For three days.

That was a nice intro to the Jets v Cowboys game

neon4891 wrote: Ten years, Osama is dead, lets get over it.

Hmmm...care to explain what you mean by "get over it?"

This gives me goosebumps:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIO9DLe_-rY&feature=player_embedded

neon4891 wrote: Ten years, Osama is dead, lets get over it.

I would love to, but as much as I enjoyed the news that his lifeless corpes was tossed into the ocean It seems my mind still takes a brief trip back to Hell every year.