What might have been?

I cannot help thinking how much more it would have deterred future terrorism if we had spent our efforts rebuilding something really cool at ground zero instead of turning so many countries into rubble. Condi Rice and, "nobody could have predicted" aside the reaction shows us two options and we seem to have gone the wrong way.

The first gives me a little hope. As soon as the passengers on flight 93 were confronted with new data they quickly overthrew the existing paradigm and took some very altruistic actions.

the second is the path more traveled by and it has led to disaster. We decided to team up with a bunch of evil dudes to do something with no thought to the consequences. We might have learned a lesson from that and we will be able to avoid creating new disasters in other peoples countries. The jury is still out. The number of people living without protection of civil society in America says the jury is still out on a lot of things. Somewhere the "In order to form a more perfect union" concept got scrapped. The constitution grew from the failure of the Articles of Confederation. The civil war grew out of the failures of the constitution.

I just do not understand the fetish of the founders. I speculate that it comes from the same place as religion. It uses the indoctrination methods of religion but that is for another day.

I think our little town has enbraced a nice reaction to the 10th Aniversary. The proper amount of over indulgence, materialism and the continuation of that quest for a more perfect union. Enjoy some of that experience.