September 11, 5 Years Later

I couldn't let 9-11 pass by without posting something. Five years have passed - not a lot of time, but enough to start gaining some perspective. There is no doubt that 9-11 changed America. I also have no doubt that History will judge us largely based on our reaction to this event.

I'm not sure if anyone else caught it, but Ted Koppel had a pretty good Town Hall/Documentary on the Discovery channel last night titled "The Price of Security." To be honest, I didn't get to see too much of it, but what I did see was pretty good. You can download an MP3 recording, as well as read a summary over at NPR. Ted Koppel seems to have really tried to take a balanced look at the need of the government to be able to act to protect the nation versus protecting our civil liberties.

Vicki's take (who watched more than me, but still not all) is that it really came down to this: Do the ends justify the means?

I do believe that we need to provide our government the (legal) tools it needs to track down terrorists who mean the harm to the Free World generally, and the US, specifically. However, I'd like to summarize my beliefs by quoting my favorite Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither."

On a final note, I wanted to point out this memorial to one of the victims of this horrible event. We must not forget.