Celebrate the 9/11 Victory over Al-Qaeda

I remember the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11/2001. I was working from home when one of my co-workers, George, told me to turn on the television. What I remember most about the collapse was thinking to myself “I am watching tens of thousands of people die.” In the days following that attack, I heard Bin Laden (who has apparently now joined the decadent ranks of the $400 haircut club, judging by his recent youthful beard makeover) declare that this was a successful attack beyond any expectations. As usual, he lied.

I considered it a victory for the United States. These evil cowards should have been able to murder 40,000 of us as they worked in those towers and Bin Laden knew it and expected it. But guess what. They couldn’t. We (and by “we” I mean mainly the heroes at the FDNY and on flight 93) saved 37,000+ people. By any standard, saving 37,000+ innocent people is worth celebrating.

What I would like to see in celebration of 9/11 is a story or two on the news about the documented difference that one of these documented survivors has made to our world or to the war on terror. It disturbs me that that I have not seen that in the past six years. I would also like to see some statistics on how many children were born as a direct result of those 37,000+ people surviving that day. I would be willing to bet it is more than 3,000. In any case, even if it is 1, it is another defeat for the terrorists.

The mainstream media is unlikely to pursue such a positive American story, so come on Fox News. We need you to carry the banner for us once again. I am sure Geraldo could come up with thousand of these stories if he put his mind to it. But we don’t need thousands; we just need a few really good ones.

So when 9/11 comes around this year, celebrate it. Celebrate the victory of the noble innocents over the terrorists. Fly your American flag proudly. Fly it rain or shine, secure in the knowledge that that flag and the nation it represents will gladly endure a few drops of rain to mourn its victims and honor its heroes. Celebrate it for the entire month as though it has been declared “Victory on 9/11 month” because, declared or not, that’s what it is. At least, that’s how I see it here at the bottom.

Why We Put Up with Hollywood

Americans are the most generous people in the world, despite what the decidedly anti-American Kofi Annan claimed in late 2006 in a particularly idiotic moment – even for him. There is good reason for Americans to be generous. We have been the most blessed in the world as far as material things are concerned, and the breathtaking vistas in many part of the United States cannot help but make the most ardent atheist wonder whether God dwells in their majesty (or at least has a vacation home there).

But the statistics on how much Americans give to charity is incomplete. By most standards, big government, pushed by bleeding heart liberals since the 1960s to give our tax dollars to the poor, has screwed this up as it does with everything that falls outside its three real jobs. It has also skewed the picture dramatically, by taking away some of the money we used to give to the charities we deemed most worthy, and giving to those that liberals deem most worthy.

So what does this have to do with Hollywood? Everything. Hollywood is filled (mostly) with liberal, high-income, entertainment industry types who most of us at the bottom recognize as having unique talent. Most of us also don’t believe that it’s really worth $20 million per movie. But we do pay the ticket and DVD prices that give them that money. So why?

There is a piece of the American psyche that sympathizes with the socialist principle of “from each according to their ability; to each according to their need.” It’s not a huge portion of the American psyche, but it is there. That portion is heavily represented by the entertainment industry.

We conservatives might get extremely irritated with the likes of Rosie and others from time to time, but it is hard to deny that there are many (including Rosie) who do good, noble, and spiritually uplifting work outside the political arena.

Their role in American society is to redistribute a portion of income. That’s what socialism does; it redistributes income. That is what people in Hollywood do. They earn large sums of money from people who can afford their services and redistribute it to those they deem worthy. It is, essentially, the socialist arm of our capitalist society.

Adam Smith’s invisible hand has guided the course of Capitalism in the United States for the 200+ years representing the greatest (and by greatest I mean the most successful and most far-reaching) economic and political experiment the world has ever known. The genius of the invisible hand continues to exert its influence in the charitable sector of our society as well as it reflects the American psyche in matters of money, whether we utilize that money to improve our lives through the enterprise that earns more money or use it to improve our lives through helping our neighbors.

The rants and raves of Rosie O’Donnell, Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, and on and on are part of the price we pay to run the socialist arm of American Society. We need to remember that when we observe them behaving in this fashion.

I desperately wish that I could formulate the same sort of cost/benefit analysis that would allow me to tolerate the bad behavior of liberals in Congress and the media. I can’t.

Mystery of the Great U.S. Economy

One of the growing number of things that President Bush gets little or no credit for is the fantastic U.S. economy over the course of his administration. This appears to run in (or against) the family and is the fault of the liberal mainstream media in the U.S. encouraged and fueled by liberal Democrats, hungry for ever-more power, both of whom appear to just make stuff up as they go along.

The attacks of 9/11 struck a blow to the U.S. economy that many thought would take years to recover from. According to a September 28, 2001 report from the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York, the economic cost to New York alone was $16.8 billion. The stock market reflected these fears. So I think the fact is pretty well-established that when a skyscraper is destroyed in New York, it tends to depress the economy.

It is now generally agreed among reputable economists that the Bush tax cuts were instrumental in sparing the nation and our trading partners much worse economic performance than what actually came to pass.

Enter the Iraq war, one of the most brilliantly executed and strategic wars in history, the crowning touch to a uniquely patriotic and successful career for which Donald Rumsfeld will never be justly recognized in his lifetime. We won, incidentally, back in 2003. What you currently see in Iraq is the Iraqi revolution – the attempt of the Iraqi people to free themselves from the tyranny of Islamic terrorists (Islamic terrorists are terrorists who have hijacked Islam, incidentally.).

Iraq became a magnet for terrorists because a free and democratic Iraq would mean the expansion of American influence and the loss to terrorists of a safe haven and ally. The fact that terrorists are focused on retaking Iraq means that they are not knocking down skyscrapers in New York or Chicago. That is a good thing. It is a good thing for the people (Americans and legitimate non-citizens) living and working in those buildings. It is a good thing for the U.S. and global economies.

It is the current Iraqi revolution that is enabling the great U.S. economy. It is the current Iraqi revolution and our participation in it (which we should be proud of, just as France was proud of participating in ours) that the anti-war crowd screams about because they have to scream about something, apparently. The anti-war crowd is, by extension, protesting the fact that the U.S. economy is too good, too many skyscrapers are being allowed to remain standing, too many people are being allowed to remain alive in those buildings, and too many families are not being destroyed by the loss of loved ones living and working in those buildings.

For more information on how many lives are at stake in the short run, please see my article of 3/26/2007 – “Dead Heroes=9/11/Victims – The Ignored Upside.”

Thank you again President Bush.
Thank you again Secretary Rumsfeld.