Terrorism In New York - restrospective

Three years ago, the world changed.  Three years ago, I began posting to the Usenet newsgroup alt.callahans a series of articles that would eventually lead me into occasionally 'blogging'.  Those articles can be found in the Google archives by searching for the subject containing 'One New Yorker's Impressions', or you can read them at http://home.cyburban.com/~jzeitlin/american/wtc.html.  At the end of that compilation, in an article written a year after the Events, I pointed out the direction that I felt that we, as a country, needed to go.

I have made the error of holding my tongue over the past two years, and saying nothing, as I saw my country head in almost exactly the opposite direction to the signpost that I raised.  I have seen the liberties that have made us what we are become more restricted; I have seen the government arrogate more and more power to itself, in the name of fighting terrorism; I have seen 'sensitive' locations become garrisoned fortresses, where people freely walked before.

We have failed to bear the burden laid upon us by the three thousand people whose lives ended three years ago this day.  We have failed to bear the burden laid upon us by a group of men with a vision, who acted two hundred and twenty-eight years ago to deliver 'a new nation, conceived in liberty'. And we do not appear to care that we have failed in this way.  We have given away our liberty, and not for security, but for an unconvincing illusion of security.  And in doing so, we show - as one of that group of men said - that we are deserving of neither that liberty nor that security.

I do not know what to do.  I can speak out, but I am a small voice crying in the wilderness. I cannot vote to restore what we have lost, because there are no candidates who will implement that restoration. But I know not what other options I have, to wake us up.