9/11 Anniversary: 5 Years of Insanity

I know that this is the time to sit back and reflect about how 9/11 changed my life, and how I was affected, and what I was doing at the time... but that's not me. Nor, really, do I give a crap about 9/11.

Gasp! How can this be? Well, lets look at some statistics.

Death total from Sept. 11 attacks: Roughly 2,800 (though debated as high as 3,000)

Death rate in 2001 (U.S.) from heart disease: 669,697 (averages to 1835/day)

Death rate in 2001 (U.S.) from cancer: 553,251 (averages to 1516/day)

Death rate in 2001 (U.S.) from AIDS: 15,000 (est.)

So, statistically, more people died of heart disease and cancer on September 11 than did people from terrorist attacks. Wow, interesting. They seem to fail to mention that in all of the "pro-freedom" propaganda. Hey, remember that crazy thing a few years ago called the Boxing Day Tsunami? How many died? Do you even remember there was a tsunami? Yeah, me neither. That's because we can't handily label people and write compelling docudramas about what happened. Nobody can harbor angst against a giant wall of water for 5 years and have it still be deemed socially acceptable.

So, this year, I demand a change. This year, I won't sit and bemoan what happened, and pretend that it was much worse than it really was. I won't sit and watch awful dramaumentaries on TV and partake in the emotional masturbation that seems to be happening so much this year. Nor will I not cringe when I listen to the word "evil" be thrown around so arbitrarily concerning that day, while I can look at the actions of our country since that date and mentally use the same term.

Yes, 9/11 was bad, but no, it doesn't merit the levels of insanity that seem to have swept the world since then. I hate to admit that the terrorists won, but damn, it's like they really didn't even have to try to make people go clinically insane. They just tricked us into blaming one set of religious zealots while wholeheartedly embracing another, and trading civil liberties for the illusion of safety.

Now that's a sad fact I will bemoan.