Open Thread: Another 9/11 Anniversary

I have mentioned the Great Forgetting this country deluded itself into, beginning shortly after 2002, but flowering into full power around 2006.

Instapundit quotes Lee Harris on this point.

Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe.

...

They forget that in time of danger, in the face of the Enemy, they must trust and confide in each other, or perish.

They forget, in short, that there has ever been a category of human experience called the Enemy. And that, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the Enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary. An enemy was just a friend we hadn’t done enough for --yet. Or perhaps there had been a misunderstanding, or an oversight on our part --something that we could correct. And this means that that our first task is that we must try to grasp what the concept of the Enemy really means.

The Enemy is someone who is willing to die in order to kill you. And while it is true that the Enemy always hates us for a reason -- it is his reason, and not ours.

Forgetting some is necessary to emotional healing and moving on. But forgetting too much leads to a fresh calamity.

They say experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.

I think this country is, alas, due to get a large dose of new experience in the next couple of years.

posted by Ace at 07:14 PM

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