On the day after, or the week after, or even the month after the World Trade Center went down, I could be inspired by the sight of a New York City fireman holding an American flag. But now, I've seen enough photos of firemen and flags.
A flag planted at the site of one of our nation's greatest symbols of commerce, capitalism, progress, wealth, and freedom was an appropriate act by men who refused to let their spirits be broken, even while the bodies of their brothers were lying broken beneath them.
But the flag raised by New York City firemen carried with it an IOU.
Like an IOU, which is worthless without the will to repay it, a flag is a promise. It is a promise that the nation symbolized by its colors will stay true to the principles believed and trusted by those who wave it. Paper and cloth possess no integrity. Integrity is an attribute of men. Without integrity, a debtor becomes a leech, and a nation, a collection of cowards.
It is time for us to keep the promise made to the New York City firemen. It is time to stop waiting for our flag to fight for itself.
I don't want to see any more photos of New York City firemen putting up American flags on the remains of the World Trade Center. I want to see photos of American soldiers putting up American flags on the rubble of Iranian and Iraqi government office buildings.
I want to see a president defend, without compromise, our Israeli allies battling Hamas in the Palestinian territories, and our Indian allies battling Al Qaeda in their own territory of Kashmir.
I want to see an administration who believes that fighting Islamic terrorists who want to kill us is more important than having Muslim friends who fund those terrorists.
I want to see a president defend, condone, and mandate the profiling of potential terrorists using all available evidence of our senses, regardless of the backlash from the friends of terrorists.
I want to see a senator suggest the use of military force in self defense now to prevent the next act of terrorism on American soil, rather than using 3,000 American deaths to gain 3,000 more votes.
I want to see a news story that tells me why a secret FBI memo should have been more illuminating than an embassy bombing. Or a World Trade Center bombing. Or why a president didn't even visit the site of that bombing.
I want someone to tell me why we are waiting for another terrorist attack to happen. I want to know why people are content to look at photos of firemen, flags, and collapsing buildings like they're looking at high school yearbooks. Like it's ancient history. Like terrorism is a thing of the past.
I want to know why more people aren't fucking angry.
I want to know when our government is going to downgrade the possibility of mass annihilation from "inevitable" to "maybe we'll stop being a bunch of public-opinion fearing pussies and actually try to prevent this shit from happening again."
Show me a little of this. Otherwise, don't you dare let me see your eyes tearing up at the sight of any firemen and flags.
