A day to express the value of justice
Updated and bumped: I wrote the following last year on September 11. Sadly, nothing has changed since then. President Obama is still trying to sell the idea that this day should be used as a day of service, something that misses the point so completely as to almost be despicable.
So, I think it is worth repeating what I wrote on September 11, 2010:
The President has asked us to consider today “a national day of service and remembrance”. Though the sentiment seems reasonable, I must respectively disagree.
September 11 should not be turned into a day to celebrate volunteerism or service or American charity. Though these values are profound, important, and an expression of much of what makes our nation great, they are not why we remember September 11.
We remember the evil acts commited on September 11, 2001 in order to remind us that there is evil in the world.
We remember these evil acts so that we will have the strength to fight that evil, with every fiber of our being.
We remember those who died in order to prevent future attacks and further deaths.
We remember so that no one can ever try to make believe these events did not happen.
We remember so that no one can spread the lie that the perpetrators were something other than what they were: Men who had decided to kill in the name of Islam, based on what they believed their religion taught them.
And finally, and most important, we remember the horrible events of September 11, 2001 so that those innocent murdered souls — whose only crime that day was going to work — will not have died in vain.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
We also need to remember that WTC 7 fell that day, approximately 5:02pm, hours after WTC 1 & 2 collapsed. It was the third steel building in history to be brought down by “fire”. The first two?
WTC 1 and 2.
Bob,
I couldn’t agree more. Why does Obama try to keep steering away from history? Does he really believe that America’s collective memory will begin to fade if he help’s that along in his own benign way! His belief system would again place this country and its citizens at risk again with all the making nice and political correctness. Never forget 9/11 and those who perpetrated it.,
There is one and only one way to end the relentlessness of Islamic extremism, and that is to make its practitioners so terrified of our response that they relinquish the idea of attacking us. That is an extremely difficult task, with no easy answers, but the challenge is being intensified because our current leaders aren’t even attempting to find the means to conduct such a policy. So it is incumbent upon those of us who recognize how dangerous these people are to keep mindful of that danger and seek opportunities to elect leaders courageous enough to combat them decisively. If these words seem extreme, so be it. We face an existential threat, which commands an extreme response.
1. As of the presidents last speech he has rendered himself NON RELEVANT, with all due respect to the president.
His ultimate accomplishment will be to install 40 years of pragmatic, compassionate, conservative thought in American governance.
2. Kerry, keep in mind that truth, related to buildings, lies in mathamatics and physics.
3. Americans will never forget the good people, our fellow countrymen and women, who lost their precious lives on 9/11/01.
Your loss must never be in vain.
4. And as coldly and as objectively as you possibly can, understand this term: STRATEGY OVER MORALITY.
It is disturbing, enlightening, oddly comforting and is the foundation of understanding the incomprehensible.
STRATEGY OVER MORALITY / S.O.M. 2011
EXTREME LEADERSHIP THOUGHT PROCESS AND ACTION WHERE THE ENDS ALWAYS JUSTIFIES THE MEANS, WHERE MORALITY IS ONLY A HUMAN CONCEPT, ADHERED TO BY “OTHERS”.
How civilizations, governments and wars throughout history are founded, fought and must at their core operate.
EXPLAINATION:
Strategy Over Morality describes a two-tiered conversation between a Public and their Leadership where the Public believes there is only a single, no tiered conversation occurring and that single conversation relates to the Public’s morality model perspective.
A model in which leadership can choose an interpretation of their core fiduciary responsibilities which becomes paramount over and above the publics morality model.
Where plausible deniability can be claimed when “immoral” acts or strategies are employed by leadership or by arms length leadership proxies.
In this conversation, leadership steps “down” to the public’s level and presents information, agenda or strategy in a tailored, palatable package the public can believe and comfortably accept. Leadership then steps back to their “higher” level, formulates and executes “necessary” agenda and strategy where the public’s interpretation of morality is not relevant.
CONCLUSION: The public lives and operates under a moral code which they assume their leadership is constrained by. This is a false perspective conclusion on the part of the public, in fact leaderships core feduciary responsibility requires that leadership is neccessarily void of morality.
TERM DEFINITIONS:
PUBLIC: The individual citizens of any civilization, society or country.
LEADERSHIP: Any macro governing body concerned with the formulation and implimentation of laws, strategies and policies, both civil and military.
LEADERSHIPS CORE FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITIES: Above all else the promotion and survival of the society, culture, power and treasure.
Related questions:
1. Who’s benevolence and self interest model would you rather live under, yours or your enemies ?
2. What steps will you not undertake in order for your benevolence and self interest model to prevail ?
3. When does morality trump power and money ?
4. What influences leadership and agenda ?
Answers and Rules of operation:
1. You never want to live under an enemies benevolence and self interest model.
2. You will take any steps in order to live under your benevolence and self interest model.
3. In order for morality to be employed it is allways initially trumped by power and money.
4. The possessors of power and money allways influence leadership and agenda.