Saturday, September 12, 2009

Forget the "We Shall Never Forget" mantra

I concur with Will Wilkinson. There's nothing healthy in this insistence that we never forget 9/11:
Those most insistent that we “never forget” 9/11 are those who need our continuing collective complicity in the erosion of our civil liberties, in the weakening of the rule of law, in the unjustified invasion of unrelated foreign countries and the murder of their people, in the policy of state-sanctioned torture.
Yes, there are many people who died on that day, and we should remember these people. But, we need to move the event into the back of our collective consciousness, where it no longer guides our actions. No person ever grew psychologically healthy by dwelling on past misfortunes. Memory of 9/11 has only led to exaggerated fear of terrorism, which is this county is a nominal threat. It has also led to erosion of civil liberties, invasion of privacy, and still continuing military aggression. Let's put 9/11 behind us.

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