The Wake

On September 11, 2001 I lost my faith in the shiny, happy people. Before that day I was a believer in Chomsky and Zinn. I believed that violence was never the answer, and I believed in the fundamental sameness of people. Before that day, I thought that the only thing keeping people from true fraternity was economics — namely, the system that was set up by those with money to keep those without from having or gaining their own. I believed that if people were left to their own devices, they would naturally fall into systems of cooperation and mutual respect.

This all changed when I turned on CNN to see United Flight 175 crash into the second tower of the World Trade Center. I saw the decision made by a group of terrorists to use civilians, people like you and me, as weapons. This is where I had always been wrong. I never took into account that people choose their actions. Instead of some vague concept called “economics” or some shady, fat, cigar-chomping caricatures of the Monopoly Man pulling the government’s strings, I realized that people choose to do what they do.

This fundamental realization, that people are responsible for their choices, is what turned me away from Chomsky, Zinn, Marx, and Engle. With this new lens to view the world, I found the moral bankruptcy of the left, where no one is responsible (unless they make more than a 100grand a year) for anything and where everyone is a victim.

Just look at the leftist apologies for the terrorists (not “insurgents” or “militants”) for proof. How many times have you heard that these people are responding to our foreign policy like Pavlov’s dogs responding to a bell? How many of you have said this? Why do you try and take away responsibility from those to whom it belongs and hang it on our government? I suspect that a lot of it comes from the refusal to believe that someone rational would make this sort of decision, despite human history’s many examples to the contrary.

I refuse to accept the responsibility that you are trying to hang around my neck. You insult the victims of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the plane in Pennsylvania for trying to place the blame on them or their families. By shifting the blame, you are refusing to see this reality: there are people in the world that, despite your cry for equality in Palestine, despite your wearing of the intifada headscarf, despite your catchy chanting about oil and blood, despite all of these, they would rejoice in your death. This is a clash of civilizations, a clash between liberal, Western ideals and the ideals of a group of people wishing for the golden age of the seventh century to come back.

Just watch the footage of the deliberate act of flying a plane full of mothers, fathers, wives, siblings, grandparents and friends into a building full of people just like you and me. This was a rational decision made by people that would celebrate if you, as an individual, were killed. There are no shiny, happy people — just those that want to kill us and those that apologize for killing.

Michael Phyle welcomes comments at phyl0005@umn.edu.