Posted on 09/13/2001 5:54:33 PM PDT by Republicanus_Tyrannus
Tuesday there were many elections taking place all over the United States. Most of them were small, municipal and county elections. Votes were made on subjects ranging from who would be able to claim the candidacy of a particular party for a particular forthcoming election, to the winning of such seats a councilperson or mayor.
But there was one vote taken that was not scheduled. No seat on any city council was up for grabs. No amount of campaign support was at stake. No determination on curfew, noise limits for parties, or whether or not a stop sign was being put up at an intersection was being decided. No scheduled vote was intended to affect the nation as a whole. But one did.
On a speeding aircraft, only partially filled, somewhere over the farms of Pennsylvania, a vote was taken. No other vote count was so heartwrenching. No other question so important was decided in these wide lands by so few. And their franchise claimed such a price, a price no person should ever again be forced to pay.
Three men spoke to their loved ones that day. United Airlines Flight 93 out of Newark was hijacked, and the men heard through their phones that thousands were killed a short time before by two other airliners in New York.
Their response humbles me.
They took a vote.
They voted whether to die resisting the monsters that came into their lives that election day. They voted on whether they would reach out and extinguish death by embracing it - whether they would die to save unknown people, in unknown numbers, somewhere in the morning ahead of them, rushing ever closer.
They took a vote.
And nothing in my life has prepared me to explain how I felt when I read those four words this morning.
They took a vote.
Sometimes you hear of something happening that can not fail to make you stop and swallow with a suddenly choked throat. Out of all this pain, this horror, three men did something that can only be described as 'holy'.
They took a vote, and all I can say is that they won.
Their names were: Mark Bingham, Jeremy GLick, and Thomas E. Burnett.
I am very upset by the probability that decent American citizens who are passengers on board airliners will be disarmed forever and have to resort to suicidal efforts to protect themselves and the people on the ground when foreign terrorists fly the friendly skies with them.
The heroes who wrestled control from the hijackers and crashed their airliner into the woods of Pennsylvania when they heard from their relatives on cell phones about the other planes that had crashed into the W T C - they deserved to be armed. They shouldn't have had to sacrifice their lives.
Treating every citizen as if we are potential terrorists will not effectively increase national security. We are our own first line of defense -- and ordinary citizens sacrificed themselves to save the White House from destruction.
Not only were they their own defense, but, even disarmed, they defended our nation from further disaster when the army and air force and law enforcement officers and airport security personnel were incapable.
Politicians: we are not the enemy. Disarm yourselves - not the patriotic citizens who love America, life, liberty and human rights.
None needed. Great post.
Thank you so much for making the effort and taking the time to compose this important tribute, which speaks for thousands. I'm proud of you.
I couldn't agree more.
Be my guest. This is the first Topic posting I've done in two years. I usually just reply to others' posts, quite infrequently.
This story has been affecting me all day, and I just wanted to let others know about these heroic men. I thank you for your kind words on my writing.
Well-said.
Dear Mr. President,
I am certain that you have received huge amounts of email, from people regarding the tragedies that occurred on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. This is one more, with a request...
On flight 93, the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania, Mark Bingham, Jeremy GLick, and Thomas E. Burnett voted to attack the terrorists who had taken over the plane, because they already knew what had happened at the World Trade Center, and reasonably inferred that their plane would meet a similar end. So, they voted to attack and die on THEIR terms, not those of the terrorists.
This is remarkable, since they were unarmed. Had they known about the ability to carry a knife on a plane (like I ALWAYS have, travelling all over North America and Europe), they would have had the ability to defend themselves, and had (literally) a fighting chance to survive.
The new rules the FAA has implemented, means that passengers are TRULY victims. There will be no more votes by passengers, no way to stop a hijacker.
It is a well-established fact, that when more weapons are available, crime goes DOWN. Because the victim(s) have an even chance of fighting back.
Stop these rules. Let passengers have knives on their persons. A terrorist- even if armed with a gun- will have no chance of hijacking a plane where the passengers are armed.
Best regards, Capitalist Eric
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