Posted on 09/08/2011 8:09:05 PM PDT by stolinsky
The tenth anniversary of 9/11 is upon us. Rather than ruminating on pious platitudes or reporting the trite remarks of gaseous politicians, I thought it might be appropriate to update some prior columns that attempt to shed light on the subject. This is this fifth.
Still Angry About 9/11
David C. Stolinsky
Sept. 9, 2011
Ten years later, I am still angry about 9/11. Many people are not. In fact, many people barely remember 9/11. They see nothing wrong with building a mosque at Ground Zero. They do not realize that Ground Zero is already a holy place. They do not realize that it would be similar to building a Japanese Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor, near the USS Arizona Memorial. They do not realize that, like our troops raising our flag on Iwo Jima, it would be a symbol of victory − but not our victory.
President Obama proposes that 9/11 be a “National Day of Service,” marked by volunteering for the poor and similar activities. This may or may not be desirable, but it has nothing to do with remembering 9/11 − or with preventing a recurrence. On the contrary, Obama ordered officials to minimize mention of Al Qaeda, as if not mentioning it would make it go away. The problem with 9/10 thinking is that it leads to 9/11.
One reason for our confusion is that we get conflicting advice on what to do with our anger. Many “experts” tell us that anger is a negative emotion – one to be avoided. Assorted gurus teach us to “put anger aside,” “find closure,” and “get on with our lives.” Clergy may give similar advice. Friends may say, “Just get over it.”
But is this good advice? Is it good psychologically? Is it good morally? Even if we can “just get over it,” should we?
It is one thing to calm our anger over minor injuries done to us. It is quite another to forgive those who do not ask forgiveness and who inflict horrible suffering on others. To forgive such people isn't kindness – it’s cruelty to all those who will be hurt by the evil that we didn’t stop.
If you are beaten up, I have no right to forgive the attacker. But at least I have some understanding of what it means to be beaten up. What can I grasp about 9/11?
● I have no conception of what it felt like to be faced with the choice of burning to death in a jet-fuel inferno, or jumping out of a 110-story building.
● I have no notion of what went through the jumpers’ minds during the 10 seconds it took to hit the pavement at 120 miles per hour. Did that seem like a very short time, or a very long time?
●I have no idea of the incredible pain the relatives and friends of the victims felt, as they waited for the bodies − or parts of bodies − to be found. Many are still waiting.
● I have no understanding of the additional pain felt by victims’ families when they watched TV and saw supporters of terrorism dancing in the streets of the Middle East.
The only aspect of 9/11 that I have a right to forgive is the emotional distress I felt watching it on TV – a microscopic part of that event. For me to usurp the right to forgive the terrorists would be arrogant and egotistical. Only the victims have the right to forgive. And they aren’t here.
Ethical principles tell us to do difficult things for others, not easy things for ourselves. We should be suspicious of a principle that tells us to do nothing when others are in peril. It is unlikely to be an ethical principle, and more likely to be a rationalization for our own selfishness and cowardice.
Doing nothing after almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens were horribly murdered – that’s ethical? No, it’s cowardly.
Having more sympathy for terrorists who were killed in a war that they started than for our own people – that’s ethical? No, it’s an excuse for cowardice.
Emphasizing our defects rather than our enemies’ atrocities – that’s ethical? No, it’s an excuse for inaction.
Clearly, the relatives and friends of the victims of 9/11 should do whatever helps to allay their pain. If forgiving the terrorists serves to mitigate the suffering, let them do so. But what about the rest of us, who didn’t lose anyone we knew on 9/11? Should we “get on with our lives” and “let go of our anger”?
We have confused the proper response of relatives and friends with what everyone else should do. We have confused what is psychologically best for the relatives with what is morally best for all the rest of us.
Psychology tells us what we should do to relieve emotional pain. It tells us nothing about what we should do to fulfill our obligations to others. This used to be taught by parents, who now work two jobs and have little time to teach anything. It used to be taught by teachers, who now can barely teach English and mathematics. It used to be taught by clergy, many of whom now preach how to feel good, not how to do good.
True, doing good often makes us feel good. But sometimes doing good is difficult, or even painful and dangerous.
Sometimes doing good requires us to recognize evil, despite the ugliness.
Sometimes doing good requires us to fight evil, despite the danger.
Sometimes doing good is the opposite of feeling good. This is a lesson you will rarely hear from New Age gurus or liberal clergy.
Rather than babbling about “getting rid of anger,” competent psychologists help us to find the real source of our anger. Then we can attempt to remedy the situation, rather than bottling up our anger – only to have it burst out unexpectedly.
If we are inhibited from expressing anger at those who deserve it, we may express it at those who don’t. Perhaps this is one reason for domestic violence, workplace violence, and road rage. If we expressed more anger at criminals and terrorists, we might express less anger at spouses, children, coworkers, or motorists.
Instead we are told, “Have sympathy for all humanity.” Sympathy can be beautiful, but if misdirected it can turn ugly. Sympathy for criminals can lead to more criminals going free, and therefore more crime. Sympathy for terrorists can induce us to “see their point of view,” which hampers efforts to combat terrorism. If we squander our sympathy on criminals, we will have none left for victims.
And we are told that anger is always destructive. Of course anger can be destructive, but if properly directed it can also be constructive.
● Anger at child molesters can lead to stronger laws, and fewer children kidnapped from their bedrooms or dragged from their front yards.
● Anger at criminals can lead to more criminals living behind prison bars, and fewer law-abiding citizens living behind window bars.
● Anger at terrorists can lead to dismantling their network and preventing another 9/11.
Anger at the perpetrators of 9/11 may have been part of the motivation for waterboarding three (only three) terrorists, including one of the chief planners of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. As a result of information he revealed, a plot to crash a plane into the Los Angeles Library Tower was broken up, saving thousands of lives. Now known as the U.S. Bank Tower, it is the tallest building west of Chicago. Those who reject this idea should realize that the only way to prove it conclusively would have been to let the plot go forward − and watch people die.
Saints may be able to rid themselves of all anger, but most of us are very far from being saints. For us, the realistic goal is not to eliminate our anger, but to control it and direct it properly. For us, 9/11 was not only a sin and an act of war – it was also a horribly costly lesson.
Let’s not waste it. Let’s use it to relearn what we used to know – the difference between petty anger and righteous indignation.
Yes, 10 years later I am still angry about 9/11, and I will be until the terrorist network has been rooted out. Only then can I allow myself to “just get over it.” But if I am tempted to forget about 9/11, I can remind myself of the scenes that caused our enemies so much joy that they danced in the streets:
The motto of Scotland is “Nemo me impune lacessit.” It is usually translated as “No one attacks me and goes unpunished.” The Scots render it informally as “Who dares meddle with me?” We Americans used to be even more direct, as witness “The Ballad of Mike Moran.”
We are forgetting who we are and where we come from. We have trouble distinguishing our friends from our enemies. We are losing our identity in a sort of national dementia. Such people are easily reduced from citizens to subjects − which, of course, the “elite” and the bureaucrats would be only too happy to accomplish.
Before it is too late, we must remember how to stand up and fight for our beliefs. For a start, we can remember how to get angry when our fellow citizens are slaughtered just because they are Americans.
Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. Contact: dstol@prodigy.net.
They can never be forgiven.
I believe it was Gen. Schwarzkopf who said, “It’s up to God to forgive terrorists. Our job is to arrange the meeting.”
“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”
- Ann Coulter
Angry?
The word for what I feel has not been invented.
I can remember that day like yesterday.
When I think of perpetrators of 9/11 (and their supporters) “Kill them all and let God sort it out” comes to mind.
200 years from now, I want their children’s children’s children’s children to cower and cringe in fear whenever they hear the sounds of jet engines overhead because their legends tell of fire from the sky.
I want them to hide in dark caves and holes in the earth, shivering with terror whenever they hear the roar of diesel engines because the tales of their ancestors talk about metal monsters crawling over the earth, spitting death and destruction.
I want their mothers to be able to admonish them with “If you don’t behave, the Pale Destroyers will come for you”, and that will be enough to reduce them to quivering obeisance.
I want the annihilation to be so complete that their mythology will tell them of the day of judgment when the stern gods from across the sea .. the powerful ‘Mericans .. destroyed their forefathers’ wickedness.
By BlueLancer
13 SEP 01
Just remember 1 thing,
Bin Laden killed a bunch of liberals!
Bush 43 tried to avenge their deaths and the liberals attacked him ruthlessly for it!
What makes you madder now?
...whoso readeth, let him understand.
I don’t think anger has anything to do with it. I said then and still do, we should have turned Afghanistan into the universe’s largest glass ash tray. In fact, that still may be the wisest thing we could do.
I’m very angry also at the liberals who have worked to lessen and diminish the meaning of 9-11, who empower and assist terrorists and every opportunity, and who got their Muslim messiah elected in 2008. Piss on all of them.
Take the 1 downtown and hear the subway wail as it passes underneath the towers.
Support Your Local ‘Plant-a-Pig’!
snip-”According to legend, resourceful citizens in Seville, Spain found a neat way to terminate the construction of yet another unwanted mosque in their town: they simply buried a pig on the site while ensuring that this fact was known to the local press...”
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2011/08/support-your-local-plant-pig.html
AMERICANS FOR A MUSLIM FREE AMERICA.
WE LEARNED ALL WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ISLAM ON 9/11
Saw some footage at archives.org, from the week of Sept 11-17, across news platforms. Proved what I knew/suspected: Fox D.C. had the best coverage, and Peter Jennings (ABC), Tom Brokaw/Katie Couric (NBC) and Bryant Gumbel (CBS) were useless.
That, and seeing those videos, I felt like it was just yesterday.
It's not understandable....unless of course you understand terrorism is Islam...but our Gov.officials and most of the public refuse to call it what it is and therefore the walls of all our society ave been breached and they are flooding in.
>> The motto of Scotland is “Nemo me impune lacessit.”
And our motto is “Can’t we all just get along?”
(From a retired United Airlines B-757 captain - I knew 6 of the United crew members lost on 9/11. I regularly flew the Boston, DC, and New York trips. It could have been me. I have ALL those airplane numbers in my logbook.)
10 years later our heads are still in the sand.
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