American Complacency

As the tenth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 approach, I am reminded of all we have lost and all we have failed to learn as a result.

We lost more than innocent American lives when al Qaida launched their multiple attacks. We lost ourselves and today seem no where near finding who we are as we sit on the brink of economic ruin.

While we, as a nation, had no difficulty uniting together after the initial terrorists attacks, we have since disintegrated into a nation of whiners, unable to draw on the same strength we found and showed to the rest of the world immediately after being attacked. Following the 9/11 attacks, America stood united along racial, gender, age, and economic fronts. Sadly, today we are divided along each, either unable or unwilling to join together in overcoming another unseen enemy ready to take us down.

It finally seems America has reached a point where no matter what we do, we can no longer have it all. As a result, we have turned on ourselves and begun to destroy what al Qaida could not do, our greatness. A nation that once stood side by side and arm in arm, willing to sacrifice all that was necessary to defeat an enemy who dared to attack us, now is all too quick to point the finger at one another and sacrifice whoever they can to keep what we feel we are entitled to.

In 2001, our leaders, still licking their wounds from a bitterly contested 2000 presidential election, managed to put aside their differences and work together to seek justice and extract retribution against our enemies. As a result, they jointly got us involved in two wars we are economically unable to sustain and have no hope for a clear or victorious conclusion.

At first, Americans were fine with all of this and were willing to make whatever sacrifices necessary, even if we were not sure what they entailed. Now, a decade later, those sacrifices have hit virtually everyone in this country and our leaders can offer no clear solutions, only more finger pointing.

In World War II, when we were attacked at Pearl Harbor by Japan, all of America sacrificed. Young men, like my father, put their lives on hold and on the line to serve in our military. Even older Americans, people like my grandfather, were quick to serve even though they were well past the military’s fighting age. Even our best professional athletes placed their careers on hold to sacrifice for a cause greater than their own personal interest.

Women took over the war machine at home and were found working long hours on military assembly lines in an effort to do what was best for the nation. Every ethnic group, including those of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry, served with honor and in heroic fashion to defeat enemies intent on bringing us down.

Today, it is a very different America. Our leaders will not unite and work through their differences and are too willing to sacrifice the lives of the people who elected them just to score political points within their own party. Our citizens expressed more concern over the shut down of the National Football League than they have over the possible collapse of our entire economy.

Questions abound but go unanswered. Should the rich pay the bill because they can afford to pay more taxes or should we cut them a break and hope they will create more jobs? Should senior citizens pay by forfeiting some of their social security benefits even though they sacrificed earlier by paying into a system their government told them would be there for them? Maybe our youth, those under the age of twenty-five, should pay the price. Most do not serve in our all volunteer military so rather than risking their lives in war they can pay by sacrificing their education, and in the process their entire future. Do we cut back on welfare knowing that if we do we run the risk of alienating those who already feel disenfranchised while also upsetting the ethnic disparity that our welfare system helps to create?

While our nation has benefited more than any other from constant advances in technology, we have also grown lazy and developed a national sense of entitlement. Hey, we are the United States. We shouldn't have to sacrifice. We shouldn’t have to face hard times. We shouldn’t have to give up what we have grown accustom to. That’s what weaker countries do.

Well, welcome to the real world, America. We are like much of the rest of the world and if we do not want to see a repeat of what took place in London last month in cities all across our country, we better find a way to reunite just as we did following the attacks of 9/11 and defeat another hard to find enemy bent on bringing us down. However, this time, the enemy does not go by the name al Qaida. It is simply called complacency.