Who Cares Where I Was 18


Over the last few days I have repeatedly heard the question asked “Where were you on 9/11?” Who the hell cares. If you weren’t there, your location is utterly irrelevant. What happened, happened. Why do people insist on dwelling on such trivial shit? Americans in particular seem to love wallowing in the past. People who where alive at the time still think about where they were when JFK died 43 years ago. It is important to be aware of history and learn lessons about what to do and not to do so you don’t repeat the same mistakes. But it is even more important to live in the present. Replaying the video of past events ad naseum is neither helpful nor productive. It just contributes to the urge to wallow. We all know what happened. We all saw it. Let’s look at what is going on around us today. By watching the past over and over it just feeds the climate of fear. By keeping people afraid, it makes it easier to persuade people to give up their freedoms. The reality is that the chances of being a victim a terrorism are so infinitesimally small that it really isn’t worth being afraid of, not to mention fomenting fear is the whole point. If you live in fear you are more willing to tolerate the government watching you all the time, listening to your private phone calls, make you show your ID all the time. You might be willing to let people in power send your kids off to fight and die in a foreign land for now apparent reason. You might not be able to read or write what you want. You might even tolerate people being arrested and locked away indefinitely without trial or charges.

Hey people! Start living in the present and pay attention to the gutting of the constitution! Take a minute to remember on Monday, but then when the replays come on, turn off the TV and the radio and go for a walk and think about why you want to protect freedom. Then get write or read something that you might not be able to do without freedom. Don’t let politicians convince you to give up freedom to save it. If you give it up now it is already lost.


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18 thoughts on “Who Cares Where I Was

  • trusty getto

    Just because it may be irrelevant to you, doesn’t mean it ought to be to others. Your self-righteous and patronizing tone trivializes the connection people feel to the moment through what they were doing and where they were. To forget or ignore the moment in time is, in my view, to lose an important and personal connection to it.

  • Sam Post author

    I must disagree with you on this Cam. My intent here was not to be patronizing. However, I feel that by focusing on personal connections to events such as this that we actually have no connection to we trivialize what happened. People need to step away from their own feelings and look at the bigger picture. Getting people to focus on their own internal feelings contributes to their personal fears that it might happen to them. When that happens it becomes easier to manipulate them into accepting actions in other times would be considered totally unacceptable. My main point us that we need to look outside of ourselves.

    We also fail to look at the root causes of why things have happened. When that happens we don’t learn from what has happened, and we end up reacting to things in the same old ways that haven’t worked in past but seem easy and expedient at the moment. We are all part of this world. In general no individual’s actions, or actions against an individual may have much impact on their own. However, all the actions in aggregate do have an impact. If we don’t look at how our actions as a group impact the world we are more likely to things that have a significant negative impact on the society and the world in the long run. By saying it is OK to abduct this guy off the street, fly him halfway around the world and “interrogate” for years without a chance to defend himself, we may or may not take one bad guy out of the fight. However, those actions when viewed by the many outside of our group, can have serious long-term repercussions. By obsessing on our own personal memories and fears, we are less likely to be conscious of whole picture.

  • trusty getto

    The intent of the attacks was to victimize all Americans, not just those that were physically present or those that were physically injured.

    I admire your ability to dispense with the past and look forward, Sam, but I think it’s wrong to suggest how others should personally relate or should not relate to this event five years after the fact. What is good and right for you is not necessarily good and right for everybody else. I also agree with your suggestion that we have certain duties on a go-forward basis, but I find the connection between personal reflection and obsession to be tenuous.

  • Julie

    Cam, with all due respect ( and I actually mean that) I don’t think you’re getting the gist of what Sam is saying, at least what I understand him to be saying. I think it’s the narcissisim of all this naval gazing that he wants people to get beyond, (feel free to correct me here if I’m wrong, Sam. I may just be projecting my feelings here.) No where does he say that people should “ignore or forget the moment in time”. Nor does he say one should “dispense with the past”. As if one could, even if one wanted to. In fact, he says (paraphrasing here) “remember it and then get on with your life”. Don’t put words in his mouth, Cam. The words he used are right there for you to read and I think you blew right past the real point of his post and came up with an entirely different meaning than he endeavored to convey.
    My own opinion here on another vein of this. Last year, 9/11 was commemorated in a subdued and understated manner, as it should be allowed to be as time goes on. So wtf is it about the number 5 that has the big wurlizter machine of the MSM and this admin. at full speed. Couldn’t be an election year, could it? They can’t hype this horrid war, but Sept. 11 will always be ripe for exploitation.

  • trusty getto

    “If you weren’t there, your location is utterly irrelevant. What happened, happened. Why do people insist on dwelling on such trivial shit? Americans in particular seem to love wallowing in the past.”

    “Hey people! Start living in the present and pay attention to the gutting of the constitution!”

    I don’t think I’m putting words (or their tone) in anyone’s mouth, Julie.

  • Julie

    Keep distorting his point, Cam. Which was don’t dwell on the past. The quote you pulled states just that. But you’re welcome to do just that (dwell), if that’s your thing. It’s not like he’s going to try and force you to give up your “personal connection”, whatever that may be. Although I agree that Sam lacks diplomacy in his tone (diplomacy has never been one of his virtues) I understand the underlying idea. You either don’t or are refusing to. So you and I are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
    Also, I find YOUR tone in your posts to be self-righteous and very patronizing. I’m speaking for myself here, not for Sam. He’s a big enough boy to speak for himself.

  • Sam Post author

    I would like to close this one out just by saying indeed my tone may have come across as overly harsh. When discussing subjects that involve politics, I do tend to get rather heated. That’s why I will almost certainly never run for any office, because I know that most people would simply not accept someone like me. I will also never censor myself or my feelings. I don’t expect the world to agree with me. In fact I expect most people to disagree with me more often than not. I look around me and form my own opinions. I re-examine those opinions and they often evolve over time. This blog is my soapbox to express those opinions. I hope to also be thought provoking. When I read blogs I examine my own ideas and hope people will do the same when they read my words.

    My primary point in the original post was to point out what to me seemed like some narcissism in focusing internally too much when looking at wider events. As you said Cam the attacks were meant to victimize all Americans. Let’s focus on why that is. The attackers didn’t care about any individual feelings except insofar as their actions made individuals afraid. People who are afraid are more easily manipulated, by all sides. If we are aware of potential danger but not consumed by it, we can look outside of ourselves for solutions that can move us beyond that. But just as we need to teach our kids we need to understand that before you can find a real solution you need to truly understand the problem. The closer you get to the real problem, the better the solution you can find.

    I get frustrated by seeing so many people wanting easy answers to complex problems and that manifests itself in my writing. Don’t take what I say too personally unless I specifically address it to you, in which case you will know it in no uncertain terms.