“We just marked the anniversary of 9/11.”
That’s what Democratic presidential aspirant and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg reminded last night’s debate audience. “All day today, I’ve been thinking about September 12th, the way it felt when for a moment we came together as a country.”
The terrorist attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon, and the attempt foiled by brave citizens who were killed in the crash of their airliner in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, did indeed result in a wonderful bond of unity throughout our country.
Having lost more than 3,000 citizens, we came together.
“Imagine,” instructs Buttigieg, “if we had been able to sustain that unity.”
Before we all sing along with John Lennon, though, consider: (1) It is not so easy for government to re-create the sort of public horror, fear, grief, etc., necessary to ensure maximum national unity, and (2) please don’t try.
The purpose of government is not to produce a pressure-cooker society where we forever exist on a wartime footing.
Do you miss the good old days of World War II? Totalitarianism threatened much of the globe; 70 million people died in the war. But it unified our country, which defeated Nazism, fascism, and a murderous empire.
We must memorialize the victory, not repeat it . . . just for unity’s sake.
Yet the Green New Deal resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocosio-Cortez (D-NY) states that “the House of Representatives recognizes that a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal is a historic opportunity. . . .”
Opportunity?
Our motto should be ‘Liberty’ — not ‘never let a crisis go to waste.’
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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1 reply on “An Opportunity to Forgo”
“The purpose of government is not to produce a pressure-cooker society where we forever exist on a wartime footing.”
Indeed. When the country was founded, the purpose of government was purported to be protection of rights, nothing more. People who call for “national unity” are usually about to start a war.