Thunderstorms, some heavy during the morning hours, then skies turning partly cloudy during the afternoon. High around 85F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..
Tonight
A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
As we get further from Sept. 11, I become more convinced that we were wrong about one thing in the aftermath.
You probably remember it well, probably said it, probably thought it a lot. I certainly did. The idea was: On that day, everything changed.
I have come to disagree with that idea. I now believe that nothing fundamentally changed at all. The most important things are exactly the same as what they were before, the same as they’ve been for centuries.
I’ll acknowledge the obvious: Yes, we now have to go through tighter security at the airport. Yes, they make you carry a clear bag into the stadium. Yes, we are possibly more acutely aware that the world is hostile, that there are people who want to kill us, want to destroy our way of life. Yes, in international relations, we have to account for non-state actors, terrorist groups.
Yes, for you young people who don’t remember, you used to be able to pretty much walk right onto an airplane, stroll right into the stadium. I used to get in for free after halftime and run up and down the west-side bleachers, collecting purple plastic cups. But that’s a story of another transformation.
My point is this: What triumphed on 9/11 was not Al-Qaeda or Bin Laden or terrorism. What triumphed was bravery, and resolution, and, ultimately, love.
It was bravery that drove those firefighters up the stairs. It was empathy and courage that drove the passengers to take down that hijacked plane in Pennsylvania. It was love in the messages people sent to each other as they faced death.
Hate, vengeance, violence, terrorism…they don’t endure. Neither does torture. Oh, sure, they endure in the sense that they’ll always be with us. But they are not a winning strategy, because vengeance leads to hate, and hate leads to violence, and violence destroys. It doesn’t build. It leads to death. It leads nowhere.
This has not changed, not ever. The religions that have endured, the great civilizations that have prospered and advanced humanity — they know this. The other ideologies, the tyrants, the fanatics, the cults — they try, but they fail. Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, McVeigh. They wanted to destroy the world to remake it, but they couldn’t. They go away.
When we remember Sept. 11 now, we remember not the death. We remember the life. We remember the sacrifice in the name of love, not the vengeance-driven killers.
They’re still out there, sure, and they won’t ever entirely be defeated. But they didn’t change anything, not anything beyond some logistics.
