A post I just wrote for the Randi Rhodes message board. I imagine this oughta spark some abuse.

OK, I know I'll probably get garrotted for apostasy or something, but hear me out.

Where did we get this idea that everything changed on 9/11?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, since I have two complementary tendencies: Thinking too much and questioning things.

So anyway, where I'm going with this is ... Did people NOT realize there were terrorists out to get us before Sept. 11?

Was this the first time terrorist had struck at us? Was this the first time terrorists had struck inside the United States?

Now, I'm not saying it wasn't a horrible thing to have happen. It was, and the scale of it was surely beyond any previous scope. And I have the greatest of sympathy for those who directly suffered a loss as a result of the terrorist attacks. But ... How many of us were actually directly affected?

I'm also not saying that nothing changed. But we entered into this giant national and international feedback loop, watching the media coverage that in thousands of subtle and not-so-subtle ways clues us in to exactly what it is we're supposed to feel, talking with friends and family and trying in thousands of subtle and not-so-subtle ways to seem the most sympathetic, the most outraged, to tell stories about people we knew or are related to who were affected so we can claim some vicarious sympathy or righteous anger, etc., etc. until we're unable to think rationally about it.

What changed? A lot of people died tragically, and they and their extended friends and families will feel that loss forever. As a living, breathing, feeling human being, I too am saddened by that loss and feel it sympathetically. But this isn't the first tragedy we've ever suffered, and it's not like we as a nation haven't been able to move on from the tragedies of the past.

What else changed? We learned, quickly and brutally, that BushCo put partisanship ahead of sound policy and gutted antiterrorism efforts.

And what else? The US lashed out like an emotionally maladjusted child, swiping at friends and foes alike and screaming that no one could possibly understand our pain. No one. Leave me alone! LEEEEAVE MEEEE ALOOONNNNE!!!!!!

That's what changed. And it embarrasses me.

Of course, it's hard to compress all that into a 2-sentence answer when someone brainlessly parrots, "9-11 changed everything! BRAAAWWWK! 9-11 changed everything!"