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A solid, patriotic response.

9/11 for many was a metaphoric wake-up call, and will prove to be the seminal event of their political lives, just as April 19, 1993, was for me. When I started reading critiques from the gun culture, their intellectuals kept repeating that the end result of gun control was genocide.

In context, that was to say is that a culture that does not take a personal responsibility to defend themselves will perish. After reading this, Columbine and a dozen other school shootings took place to underline the point. Rather than jocks and teachers rushing two skinny shotgun wielding teens, they ran for their lives as the federalis hid in the parking lot.

The gun culture pointed to a picture from Nazi Germany where thousands are led into a concentration camp, guarded by men with unloaded weapons. You could tell because the bolts were open (see John Ross's Unintended Consequences.) The point was that people had lost their will to defend even their own lives, let alone the heard. They were led willingly to their own certain deaths.

It was like the Twilight Zone episode with the bomb shelter, and the neighbors trying to break-in. Is this what we have come, too as a society? The culture that drilled and trained for a year and caught the greatest army in the world off guard April 19, 1775 up in my neck of the woods, is long gone. What crazy bastards those SOBs must have been!

But to see a glimpse of that culture alive in Todd Beamer was to be reminded, like the first time you see a painting of Jesus and Mary, that deep within us is the love of our neighbor that will cause men to give up their lives so that others may live. Attempts by yourself to dismiss it a rational decision made after they learned their fates, or the FBI claiming that the hijackers crashed the plane on purpose, serve only as weak attempts to diminish what we all saw on TV. While three other planes 'hoped it was just a hijacking', one group was not led willingly to the slaughter.

F-16s, machine guns, trillion dollar central intelligence agencies, global hegemony...are nothing compared to an angry American who loves liberty more than life itself.

The response of the befuddled DC tax regime was to lash out, in retrospect almost irrespective of 9/11. They attacked 'states' and let the criminals escape, all the while the schemers and money men corrupted the entire process. That is the nature of war, a dirty, ugly enterprise.

Bringing the boys home, is what we, the conservative cognitive elite, must support. It is far too risky to leave them in the field for a Democratic President to go in search of monsters to destroy (see Serbia/KLA.)

In addition to 9-11, the Florida election debacle was a seminal moment for me. Actually, the Hillarycare scare was also. I was real scared they would succeed. I will always be thankful for Phil Gramm for how he stood up to that monster.

I appreciate your comments. It's easy to sink into pettiness online. It's nice to be able to step away from that abyss and share honest thoughts and perspectives. It takes two to make that happen. Thanks for that.

I am glad that you are passionate about America and our future. It is possible to strongly disagree even while sharing the same goals and ideals. Look at Patrick Henry and James Madison, two great American patriots and statesmen. Look at their debates on the ratification of our Constitution. Great minds can disagree.

Unfortunately, we have people like Kennedy and Leahy et al sullying the water with their bile. Only thing I would ask of you is to consider the temper of your words. Criticism is good and right, but do so judiciously, or shall I say, graciously, and I believe the result will be better, and the unwanted effects fewer. Not just in terms of decorum and civility, but in terms of whether you carefully raise concern while affirming goodness, or whether you spread alarm and subversion recklessly. Something to consider. I hope I do not condescend in saying my peace on that. Good day.

To make myself clear, I am asking you to consider the substance of your criticisms, and what you are willing to say and what assumptions you are willing to make in public. I am not saying play nice in the sandbox. That's good, too, and we should all do that. I am addressing the substance. You said a few things that to me approached Kennedy-esque proportions, along the lines of his recent "fraud" and "bribery" remarks. Those comments are not helpful at all. Be careful not to contribute to that sort of public vomiting. Be prudent.