Quote:
Originally posted by Kutz
If you wish to remember only those who were lost, go ahead. If you want to also express your patriotism, go ahead. If you want to do neither, go ahead. But hearing my school district describe a patriotic salute session as a 'memorial service' was disgraceful.
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Precisely.
Think of it this way: imagine that the 9/11 planes hadn't been hijacked, but were instead guided by some massive computer glitch into the buildings that they hit.
The people who worked in all three buildings, and who flew in all four planes would be just as dead. The firefighters and cops (who weren't random bystanders perfoming heroic deeds, but trained professionals doing what they were paid to do; the risk comes with the uniform) caught in the collapse would be just as dead.
It would be viewed as a horrendous and tragic accident, obviously. But would the poor bastards in the WTC and Pentagon be "patriots" for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or simply be victims of an event over which they had no foreknowledge or control? These weren't valiant soldiers defending the WTC from evil aggressors; these were accountants and data entry clerks and marketing executives and janitors who hit the Unlucky Lottery in a big way. The fact that the plane crashes were intentional didn't make the victims act any differently, or make them more or less patriotic than they were the day before.