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Posted on 09/17/2001 6:35:40 AM PDT by g'nad

It's All My Fault

By Nathan Porter

I offer my apology to the victims of the terrorist attacks. It’s entirely my fault. In the struggle to determine who was responsible for the despicable acts of violence, men of self-proclaimed wisdom have identified the culprit, and it is I.

It is I who supported Ronald Reagan when he led the bombing of Libya and the invasion of Grenada. It is I who supported the Contras of Nicaragua. I am the one who demanded we fight the Gulf War. And while I did not support our action in Kosovo it is my tax dollars that keep American troops there to this day.

Because I have food and clothing, I am the one responsible for Third World hunger and poverty. Because I am healthy, I am responsible for death and disease. It is my fault because I support a moment of silence and/or prayer in public schools, and that divisive act is just the sort of thing that makes radical-Islamic terrorists hate America.

But my culpability does not end there. I am responsible for the presidency of George W. Bush, and although these attacks were being planned long before his election, it is now clear to me that he is the reason the whole planet hates America. I even live in a state that voted overwhelming for Bush, so if anyone should have died on Tuesday it should have been me.

Worse yet, not a day goes by when I do not sin and fall short of the glory of God. Surely this is the reason Osama bin Laden chose to attack America. Long before the terrorist attacks laid waste to lower Manhattan, I wasted my seed in non-procreative intercourse with my wife. The night of the attack I committed acts of gluttony by eating an entire 14 inch pizza, drinking 4 – or was it 10? – bottles of Samuel Adams (patriotic times call for patriotic beer), and polishing it all off with half of a frozen Mrs. Smith’s chocolate cream pie and a pot of coffee.

The next day I was guilty of sloth when I slept till 10:00 am then spent the rest of the day lying on the sofa screaming at Peter Jennings. Which brings me to yet another reason the Trade Towers are no more; I called the man a fool at least 150 times, and much worse no less than a thousand. Upon seeing Jerry Falwell and reading the statements of Michael Moore, I have recently uttered many careless phrases and words; words like fat-b@st@rd, stupid-fat-b@st@rd, and stupid-fat-b@st@rd-charlatan. Many times this week I was quick to anger, and the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Surely I should have been destroyed.

So to the victims of Tuesday’s terrorism I say do not blame the hijackers, Osama bin Laden, the ACLU, or even the pagan sodomites at Disney World. Turn your anger toward me instead. It was entirely my fault. Well, I suppose I could’ve had a little help. Help from people like Jerry Falwell and Michael Moore.

On Tuesday Michael Moore, that fat b@st@rd who made the film Roger and Me and the television show The Awful Truth, wrote the following: “In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race — you name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all.”

Let me repeat, this attack has been in the planning long before Bush was elected/selected president. I rather doubt the folks who took down the World Trade Center care one iota about the Kyoto agreement. The folks who worry about that sort of thing are more adept at destroying chain-link fences.

Moore continues: “When the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, the CIA trained him [Osama bin Laden] and his buddies in how to commits acts of terrorism against the Soviet forces. It worked! The Soviets turned and ran. Bin Laden was grateful for what we taught him and thought it might be fun to use those same techniques against us.”

This is an uncomfortable fact, but it is a fact of life on Earth that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. The fact of the matter is that it was England which armed the American Colonies and we turned on them. It was the North that armed the South and we turned on them, too. These things happen. Get over it.

Moore concludes: “We have orphaned so many children, tens of thousands around the world, with our taxpayer-funded terrorism (in Chile, in Vietnam, in Gaza, in Salvador) that I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised when those orphans grow up and are a little whacked in the head from the horror we have helped cause.”

Earth to Michael: not one of the hijackers was Chilean, Vietnamese, or El Salvadoran. And not one of them was orphaned by an act of the US, not one. The awful truth is, Michael, you are an artless, fool-born lout, whose seminal work was Canadian Bacon, a film so bad that it killed the great John Candy. And it is truly frightening that anyone would give credence to anything you say at a time like this.

Still aren’t convinced that Michael Moore is a major-league a$$hole? How about this from his latest dispatch: “Keep crying, Mr. Bush. Keep running to Omaha or wherever it is you go while others die, just as you ran during Vietnam while claiming to be ‘on duty’ in the Air National Guard. Nine boys from my high school died in that miserable war. And now you are asking for ‘unity’ so you can start another one? Do not insult me or my country like this!”

Divided We Fall

In their own twisted way, those who relentlessly preach that America’s demise will come from within have convinced me that they are right. The moment I saw the second plane hit the Trade Towers I decided we are all in this together, and that I would not use this event to take shots at Americans with whom I disagree politically. Unfortunately, some on the left and right couldn’t wait to blame this tragedy on their political foes. And so it is with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, the yin and the yin of Christianity.

The two made headlines this week with the following exchange:

Falwell: “God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.”

“Jerry, that's my feeling,” Robertson responded.

Falwell went on to blame the terrorism on pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the ACLU and the People for the American Way.

“All of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen,’” Falwell said.

My friends, I am no friend to any of these groups, and I have written often against abortion at any stage of life. But in my opinion, Falwell and Robertson’s designation of which sinners and which sins are responsible for the individual actions of a few Islamic terrorists is wrong. Abortion is wrong, but if it were abortion that caused the attacks why wouldn’t God direct his anger towards China? If homosexuality were the cause, would not Germany be first on God’s list? I know they have tried to claim they were quoted out of context, but after first reading the news accounts I sought out the video of the exchange. Taken in context their words are as shameful as those of Michael Moore and all who at this time seek to divide America along ideological lines.

When arguing against hate crimes legislation, Falwell wrote: “I believe that those individuals who brutalize, vandalize or kill - for whatever reasons - should be swiftly punished to the fullest extent of the law. But politicizing such individuals' actions, in my opinion, is dangerous and reckless.”

Is not politicizing the actions of these individual terrorists even more dangerous and reckless in the current climate? How interesting it is that conservatives like Pat Robertson and Falwell can argue that one cannot blame a gun for gun violence, or blame societal problems like racism and poverty for a criminal act, or blame mental illness when a mother murders her children. “Andrea Yates, not postpartum depression is responsible,” we are told. But now it is the American sinner (and not just any sinner but specific ones) who is responsible for Islamic terrorism?

If so then that is me, for every day I sin and come short of the glory of God. And for that, I apologize to the people who lost their lives on my account. But likewise Falwell, Robertson, and Moore should apologize to the victims for they at the very least are guilty of slandering their neighbor, harboring an arrogant heart, and thinking more highly of themselves than they should.

Last month a Harris Poll for U.S. News and World Report found that most Americans no longer have heroes. Pollsters surveyed more than a thousand people and found more than half could name no living public figure they considered a hero, and one in six could name no hero at all. Imagine what the results of such a poll would be today. And that is the glorious silver lining of this entire event. It has made crystal clear that each of us has heroism in our souls, if we choose to find it.

My mind particularly dwells on those heroes of United flight 93, who over the skies of Pennsylvania were “fortunate” enough to learn about the events that preceded them, thus allowing them to know the horrific truth of their hijacker's intent. They would not let it stand. And when the day comes that these brave souls are awarded the Medal of Freedom I will not ask, nor will I care, whether they were Democrat or Republican, Christian or pagan, straight or gay. The point is, united we stand divided we fall. For some reason these words mean more now than ever...at least to me.

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