How Quickly We Forget--to Our Own Hurt

September 11, 25 years ago, began as a normal day. Kids went to school, eager for the new year ahead. Parents and others went to their jobs. Some people were flying on planes of a variety of airlines on trips to various destinations for various reasons.

But 19 of those fliers had one-way tickets, and they all had a nefarious reason for their flights. They were prearranged into four teams, and they worked in a coordinated way to hijack four commercial airliners, two each belonging to American Airlines and United Airlines.

The hijackers crashed one airliner from each airline into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. They crashed the other American Airlines plane into the west side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. And the hijackers of the fourth plane were overcome by brave passengers who fought back, but the plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in those horrendous terrorist actions. And countless others--family members, friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc.--were adversely and irreparably affected by them, too.

The entire nation mourned. Patriotism suddenly made a comeback. American flags suddenly sprang up everywhere. Congressmen of both parties set aside their differences and stood shoulder to shoulder on the steps of the nation's capitol and sang "God Bless America." And they all pledged with the rest of the nation never to forget.

But they--and many others--have forgotten. And we now have a whole new generation that never witnessed either the attacks or the pledge of their leaders never to forget, but always to remember.

The people of that new generation, born on or after September 11, 2001 (also known as 9/11), are now voting, and who are they electing? The very people who hold the same violent anti-American, anti-Jewish, pro-Muslim, and pro-communist views of the terrorists who committed the 9/11 atrocities.

They are electing people who hate both America and Israel, people who take an oath of office declaring that they will support and defend the Constitution of the United States but then promote every imaginable bill and cause that will destroy that very constitution. They elect people from foreign countries who openly admit that they consider their allegiance to be to some foreign country, not the United States. They elect people who support--or at least refuse to condemn--such traitors. And they attack anyone who dares speak out against such treason.

The new generation of voters are electing--with the help of misinformed and uneducated dupes and aging hippies from the Sixties--communists who have the same agenda--the destruction of America, the death of Israel, and the end of free enterprise and personal liberty.

What factors have created such a generation? The public educational system that is more concerned with everything but teaching kids our illustrious history and the principles of free government and a free economy. Universities that promote the teaching of communism, anarchy, anti-Christian hatred, anti-Semitism, and wokism. Political leaders who value their power and position more than truth and liberty. Dupes who decry the blessings of freedom and the benefits of capitalism all while using those very tools that free enterprise and individual freedom created.

Who else is responsible?

Those of us who have been too comfortable and too cowardly to speak out against it all, too timid to stand and defend what made this nation great, the envy of the world.

We have forgotten. The new generation never learned to begin with.

When will we ever learn?

George Santayana famously declared in his book The Life of Reason, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller spoke of the cowardice of the German people who would not speak out against Hitler during the rise of the nascent Nazi Party there, "First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

Edmund Burke wrote in his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Others, including John Stuart Mill, have expressed the same truth in their own words.

We've been forewarned repeatedly. But we've ignored the warnings. We've forgotten.

We all said we'd never forget. But we did, and now our own words condemn us. We have forgotten, and we're beginning to see the consequences of our forgetfulness.

When will we learn?